the internal struggle in the Georgian Church

Metropolitan Shio was hospitalized for a week and suspicious substances were detected in his blood. Internal conflicts had already arisen in 2017, when Patriarch Ilia II named him his right hand. On the other hand, infighting has a long history under the domes of Tbilisi, where even Stalin had dreamed of an ecclesiastical career when he was a young seminarian.

Tbilisi () – The alleged poisoning of Metropolitan Shio (Mudzhiri), 54-year-old patriarchal lieutenant of Tbilisi, remains a mystery. But the Georgian faithful have had to realize once again that within the local Orthodox Church there is an intense internal struggle, just as it happens in the same Georgian society, deeply divided between pro-Russians and pro-Western.

On July 5, the theologian Levan Taturashvili broke the news of the poisoning based on patriarchal sources. In a channel transmission Mtavari Arkhi he claimed that the metropolitan had been poisoned with arsenic and that the civil and ecclesiastical authorities had decided to keep the incident secret. The analysis of the sacred accessories used for liturgy in the chancel of the Holy Trinity Cathedral had been carried out overnight, but the results were not reported.

Metropolitan Shio had already started feeling sick a week ago and suspicious substances were detected in his blood. It is believed that they could have been administered “in successive stages”. Protoierej Andrij Dzhagmaidze, spokesman for the patriarchate, did not rule out poisoning and spoke of an “excessive concentration of heavy metals in the body.”

The television channel Rustavi 2 He pointed out that the incident “coincides suspiciously” with the death of a temple cleaning woman, who had also felt ill for a long time. Finally, a case was opened against unknown persons for premeditated homicide.

Shio appeared in public on July 12 on the occasion of the Orthodox feast of Saints Peter and Paul to celebrate the solemn liturgy, and in his homily he assured that he was fine, although the doctors had recommended further tests. He confided to the journalists that he could not understand if it was “an involuntary illness or a concrete action”, and he hoped that everything would be clarified soon.

All this greatly shocked the faithful and the entire Georgian society, and reminded us of what happened in November 2017, when Patriarch Ilja II appointed Shio as his lieutenant, as if he was about to leave his post or in any case wanted to signal a successor. Then a series of internal conflicts broke out in the Georgian Church that also involved political forces and all public opinion, and even then there was talk of an attempt to poison the patriarch himself.

The chances of Shio ascending the patriarchal throne are high, but not guaranteed, due to the continual swing of the balances of power within the church hierarchy. It is worth remembering the precedent of Soviet times, when Metropolitan Kallistrat (Tsintsadze), appointed lieutenant in 1925, failed to become patriarch two years later. Other cases from the last century speak of the criminal methods repeatedly used in the internal struggles of the Georgian Orthodox, and that even Patriarch Kirion II had found himself shot. That was before Soviet assimilation and the case was never solved, but other priests associated with it also died violently or suspiciously. According to certain investigations, some bishops had paid the murderers of their internal adversaries.

It is also remembered that during these struggles, at the beginning of the last century, the young Josif Dzhugashvili was a seminarian from Tbilisi and he, too, dreamed of ascending the patriarchal throne. But he made his dream come true through the revolution and the internal struggles of the Communist Party, well trained by the ecclesiastical formation, until reaching the peak of “red patriarch” with his battle name, the father of the people and commander Stalin .

Georgia has always been a weak country and highly dependent on external influences, both in the political and ecclesial fields. At the time of the first Councils, when Armenia managed to escape its dependence on Constantinople by choosing the Monophysite heresy, the Georgians decided to remain Orthodox for fear of isolation. There has always been a “collaborationist” and a “hardcore” party in Georgia, and the current Russian war is calling both soldiers and priests to arms to fight for military, political and spiritual victory.