Georgian Church and Russian Orthodoxy On March 25, 1917, the Georgian Orthodox Church proclaimed the restoration of its ancient autocephaly and its independence from the Russian Church. The Russian Church did not recognize the election of the new Catholicos-Patriarch Kyrion (+1918) and ceased Eucharistic Communion with the Georgian Church. In a letter to Patriarch Tikhon dated August 5, 1919, the newly elected Catholicos-Patriarch explained that the incorporation of the Georgian Church into the Russian Church following the Russian Empire’s takeover of Georgia in 1801 was not canonically valid because it was an act of state rather than of the Church. Patriarch Leonide, elected Catholicos-Patriarch after Kyrion’s assassination in 1918, stated his grievance that the Russian Church did not invite representatives of the Church of Georgia and other local churches to its own Local Council. |
