Shio era

A new patriarch has been elected in Georgia. We tell you who he is and what alternatives there were to him

Despite the attempts of some hierarchs to introduce intrigue into the election process, the most obvious candidate became the new Patriarch of Georgia - the official successor to Catholicos Ilia II, 57-year-old Metropolitan Shio (Mujiri). He served in Moscow and received a Russian education - for many, his rise to power in the GOC evokes direct associations with the rise of the Georgian Dream, loyal to Russia, to power in Georgia...

The Orthodox world was awaiting the election of a new Georgian patriarch with bated breath. Firstly, theoretically, their outcome could change the global church-political balance in favor of the Constantinople (Ecumenical) Patriarch and to the detriment of the Russian Orthodox Church (the SVR signaled this in a very extravagant manner). Secondly, hopes were expressed within Georgian society that the choice, which was not in tune with the political course of oligarch Bidzina Ivanishvili, who controls parliament and government, would strengthen the authority of the Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC) as a social institution and a pillar of people's democracy.

But there were no sensations - at an extended meeting of the Synod of the GOC on May 11 in the new Cathedral of the Holy Trinity (Sameba) in Tbilisi, built not without the support of Ivanishvili, the 57-year-old Metropolitan of Senaki and Chkhorotskui Shio (Mudzhiri) was elected 142nd Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia. As reported by the Georgian Patriarchate, 22 out of 38 bishops who participated in the voting voted for him. Ordinary clergy and laity, although they were present at the meeting and participated in the discussion of candidates, did not have the right to vote. Metropolitan Job of Urbnis and Ruis (Akiashvili) received 9 votes, Metropolitan of Poti and Khobi Gregory (Berbichashvili) - 7.

Shio has partially governed the GOC since 2017, when the ailing Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II, who had occupied his throne since 1977, appointed the young metropolitan as his locum tenens. On the day of the death of Ilia II, March 17, Shio officially took over the administration of the GOC. Despite the voting procedure and the rather convincing victory of the new patriarch, everything looks as if Ilia II simply handed the church over to his successor, and the church did not dare to challenge this decision.

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The Primate of the Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC) bears the magnificent title “His Holiness and Beatitude Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, Archbishop of Mtskheta and Tbilisi, Metropolitan of Pitsunda, Sukhumi and Abkhazia.” The latter part was added to the title after the 2008 Russian-Georgian war. The reign of the first head of the GOC, Bishop John of Mtskheta, is dated by medieval sources to the mid-4th century. In the first centuries of its history, the GOC was canonically dependent on the Armenian Church, but after its separation from Byzantine Orthodoxy it gradually became dependent on the Antiochian Patriarchate. In the 11th century, the GOC was headed by Catholicos-patriarchs, which meant the actual proclamation of autocephaly. After the inclusion of Georgia into the Russian Empire in 1811, the St. Petersburg Synod abolished the autocephaly of the GOC and subordinated its dioceses to itself, but at the Mtskheta Council in March 1917, autocephaly was restored. In the 1920s and 30s, the GOC was part of the alliance of renovationist (“red”) churches of the USSR, but in 1943, after the restoration of the structures of the Russian Orthodox Church on the initiative of Stalin, it was recognized by the Moscow Patriarchate. Art. 9 of the Constitution of Georgia establishes a special status for the GOC, and in 2002 a “concordat” was signed between this church and the government. Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II headed the GOC from 1977 to 2026: at the beginning of his reign there were only 34 registered churches in Georgia; Today the GOC has 550 parishes, 170 monasteries and more than a thousand clergy. According to the 2014 census, more than 83% of Georgians call themselves parishioners of the GOC.

Novaya twice named Shio as the most likely candidate for the Georgian patriarchate. Elizbar Mujiri, as he was called in the world, was born in early 1969 in Tbilisi, graduated from a music school and entered the conservatory, from where, at the age of 20, he became a novice at the famous Shio-Mgvim Monastery (hence his monastic name). He became a priest in 1996, and graduated from the seminary two years later, deciding to continue his education at the Moscow Theological Academy. In 2001 he became rector of the Georgian Church of St. George in Moscow, moving to St. Tikhon's University - a stronghold of conservative ideology in the Russian Orthodox Church. While still a student, in 2003, Shio was elected Bishop of Senaki and served in this department for more than 20 years in Megrelia.

His appointment as locum tenens nine years ago, while the patriarch was alive, came as a surprise to many more honored and titled hierarchs, and the Georgian media directly linked the appointment with the visit to Tbilisi of the then “Minister of Foreign Affairs” of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeev), whom Ilia II treated with special warmth (in his youth, Grigory Alfeev, the future Hilarion, served as a subdeacon Catholicos-Patriarch). Shio’s appointment took place against the backdrop of a loud scandal surrounding the attempted poisoning of the head of the GOC, so it seemed as if someone had twisted the elderly patriarch’s arms.

From a political point of view, however, the appointment turned out to be far-sighted, since Shio’s Russian connections and sympathies correlate well with the course of the Georgian Dream party, which in 2017 already controlled power in the country, and a year and a half ago strengthened its position to the point of abandoning the country’s European integration. In 2022, the Georgian Dream government did not introduce sanctions against the Russian Federation, banned support for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and Russian oppositionists who fled to Georgia faced certain difficulties. One of the projections of this course on church life was the consistent position of Locum Tenens Shio on non-recognition of the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, so that formally the GOC considers Ukraine the “canonical territory” of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The number of votes cast for alternative candidates became an indicator of the positions of the national-conservative and pro-Western (more precisely, pro-Constantinople) flanks in the GOC. 65-year-old Metropolitan Job of Urbnis and Ruis (9 votes) heads the diocese, which is based on conservative monasteries that criticize the government and the “heresy of ecumenism.” Metropolitan Gregory of Poti and Khobi (7 votes) is the same candidate whom the SVR angrily condemned in its press release as undesirable for Moscow. These candidates had no real chance of winning, but the “people's candidate,” as the Georgian press calls him, Metropolitan of Nikoza and Tskhinvali Isaiah (Chanturia), expelled from South Ossetia, had them.

As Novaya wrote, in 2008 he became famous for taking Georgians in the Tskhinvali region from under shelling in his own car, after which he returned to his war-damaged monastery in the border village of Nikozi. Isaiah organized a children's art school and an international animated film festival. His candidacy was rejected by the synod on purely formal grounds - lack of higher theological education. And attempts to change the charter of the GOC in order to give Isaiah a chance were blocked by the “Shio party”.

…Given Shio’s relatively young age, it can be assumed that his patriarchate will be long, although it is unlikely to break the record of Ilia II.

In the history of the GOC, the “era of Shio” begins. The new head of the church always behaved modestly, remaining in the shadow of his great predecessor. Now he has a chance to open up, to offer the church some new course, and the Orthodox have hope that this course will not be reduced to banal obedience to the “senior comrades” from the Russian Orthodox Church.