18/03/2026
Yesterday, Georgia lost one of its most beloved figures.
His Holiness Ilia II, Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, passed away on March 17th at the age of 93, after nearly five decades leading the Georgian Orthodox Church. For most Georgians, he was simply always there. A constant. A presence that felt as old and steady as the country itself.
He took the helm of a Church that had been beaten down by Soviet repression, restricted, diminished, nearly silenced. What followed was one of the quiet miracles of modern Georgian history. Churches and monasteries were restored and built. Seminaries reopened. Parishes multiplied. A faith that had been forced underground came back into the light.
In 1990, the Ecumenical Patriarchate formally recognized the Georgian Church's autocephaly - a moment of enormous significance for Georgian Christians. In 2002, the Church's place in national life was written into a constitutional agreement with the state.
But for many families, the memory of Ilia II is more personal than any of that. Starting in 2007, he personally baptized every third and subsequent child born to Georgian Orthodox parents becoming their godfather. Hundreds of thousands of children, tens of thousands of families who now carry that bond. Studies have since suggested the initiative was connected to a real, measurable rise in births in the years that followed.
He was present in grief too. After the 2008 war with Russia, he traveled into the conflict zone to help bring fallen Georgians home.
For generations, he was Georgia - its faith, its memory, its endurance.
May his memory be eternal. 🙏
