Georgia has declared five days of state mourning after the death of Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II, who led the Georgian Orthodox Church for 49 years. Flags have been lowered across the country, television channels have suspended entertainment broadcasts, and transport services in Tbilisi were expanded for the mourning period.
A round-the-clock memorial service is being held at Sameba Cathedral. Tens of thousands of people have been arriving there every day, with the line from the metro stretching for more than a kilometer. Among the mourners are many of the patriarch’s godchildren: since 2008, Ilia II had personally become godfather to third and subsequent children in church-married families, and is believed to have become godfather to more than 50,000 children.
The funeral is scheduled for March 22, 2026. By decision of the Synod, the patriarch will be buried not at Sameba but at Sioni Cathedral in old Tbilisi, in accordance with his own wishes. Seven Georgian patriarchs of the 20th century are already buried there.
Ilia II died on the evening of March 17 at a Tbilisi clinic, where doctors were trying to save him after an ulcer opened. He was 93 years old. Despite years of serious illness, he retained influence within the Synod until the end and remained the country’s most authoritative public figure.
His death has also sharpened external church tensions. Both Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church had been expected at the funeral, even though their relations have been broken since 2018 after the recognition of the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. In the end, Moscow decided to send not Patriarch Kirill but Metropolitan Veniamin, Exarch of All Belarus.
After a 40-day mourning period, the Georgian Church will have to choose a new primate. Analysts and theologians quoted by the publication say the struggle will be not only between candidates, but between two models: the church as an institution of power and the church as a space for reform and dialogue with modern society.