After driving through the mountains of Armenia from Yerevan, the nation’s capital, on April 25, 2015, His Beatitude, Metropolitan Tikhon, Archpriest John Jillions and Roman Ostash were offered a warm welcome at the Georgian border by His Eminence, Metropolitan Gerasime, accompanied by bishops, clergy and faithful of the Orthodox Church of Georgia, after which they were received at the guest house of Holy Trinity Monastery in Tbilisi, the Republic’s capital. In the afternoon, they met with His Holiness and Beatitude, Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II of All Georgia and Archbishop of Mtskheta and Tbilisi.
On Saturday evening, Metropolitan Tikhon presided at the celebration of the Vigil at the recently completed Cathedral of the All Holy Trinity—a superb example of classic Georgian ecclesiastical architecture. After the service, Metropolitan Gerasime accompanied the OCA delegation on a walk through the center of Tbilisi’s old city and across the Mtekhi bridge, where 100,000 Georgians were martyred for their faith in Christ in the 13th century.
The Orthodox Churches of Georgia and America have always maintained a close relationship, and the former was one of the first churches to recognize the autocephaly of the OCA. Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia had visited the OCA on numerous occasions in years past.
The Church of Georgia—the sixth of the world’s autocephalous Orthodox Churches—traces its origin to the early fourth century evangelistic mission of Saint Nino, Equal to the Apostles, in the region of what is today the Republic of Georgia. The Church faced numerous challenges during its 1700 year history due to a variety of issues. Though an ancient Church, it became an exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church when the Russian Empire absorbed the Kingdom of Georgia. After the Russian Revolution, however, it regained its autocephaly and was recognized by the Russian Orthodox Church in the 1940s. The Georgian Church experienced persecution during the Soviet era and has experienced a revival after the fall of communism.
