The Apostolic Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Georgia (), commonly known as the Georgian Orthodox Church or the Orthodox Church of Georgia, is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church in full communion with the other Eastern Orthodox churches. It is Georgia's dominant religious institution, and a majority of Georgian people are members. The Orthodox Church of Georgia is one of the oldest churches in the world. It asserts apostolic foundation, and that its historical roots can be traced to the early and late Christianization of Iberia and Colchis by Andrew the Apostle in the 1st century AD and by Saint Nino in the 4th century AD, respectively. As in similar autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Christian churches, the church's highest governing body is the holy synod of bishops. The church is headed by the patriarch of All Georgia, Shio III, who was elected in 2026.
Eastern Orthodox Christianity was the state religion throughout most of Georgia's history until 1921, when the country, having declared independence from Russia in 1918, was occupied by the Red Army during the Soviet invasion of Georgia, becoming part of the Soviet Union. The current Constitution of Georgia recognizes the special role of the Georgian Orthodox Church in the country's history, but also stipulates the independence of the church from the state. Government relations are further defined and regulated by the Concordat of 2002.
The Georgian Orthodox Church consistently ranks among the most influential institutions in the country.IRI Poll Shows Strong Support of Georgian Citizens for EU and NATO Membership, Civil Georgia, 16/11/2023 Quote: "Georgian army tops the list of most favorably viewed institution with 77%, followed by the Patriarchate of Georgia – 71%" Although the 71% reported having a positive view of the church in 2023, trust in the church has declined since its peak in the late 2000s, with a parallel increase in the number of people who are ambivalent,Gilbreath, D. (2020). The Slow and Quick Declines in Trust in the Georgian Orthodox Church. Caucasus Analytical Digest, 116, 13-16. https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000428141 Quote: "While 75% of Orthodox Christians fully trusted the church in 2008, only 33% did in 2019. Over this same period, the share reporting that they “rather trust” the church has increased from 15% to 38%. Ambivalence has also been on the rise: while only 4% of the public reported that they neither trusted nor distrusted the church in 2008, 21% did in 2019." and regular church attendance is generally low, as in many European countries.Lucy Papachristou. Ilia II, patriarch who led Georgian Church out of the Soviet Union, dies at 93, Reuters: March 17, 2026 Quote: "The Church is consistently ranked as the most respected institution in Georgia - Ilia II was named its most trusted man in a 2008 poll - although rates of weekly church attendance hover at the low levels seen in many European countries."
History
Origins
Traditions regarding Christianity's first appearance in Iberia and Colchis According to Georgian Orthodox Church tradition, the first preacher of the Gospel in Colchis and the Kingdom of Iberia (modern-day western and eastern Georgia) was the apostle Andrew, the First-Called. According to the official church account, Andrew preached across Georgia, carrying with him an acheiropoieta of the Virgin Mary (an icon believed to have been created "not by human hand"), and founded Christian communities believed to be the direct ancestors of the church. However, modern historiography considers this account mythical and the product of a late tradition derived from 9th-century Byzantine legends about the travels of St. Andrew in eastern Christendom. Similar traditions regarding Saint Andrew exist in Ukraine, Cyprus, and Romania. Other apostles claimed by the church to have preached in Georgia include Simon the Canaanite (better known in the West as Simon the Zealot), who is said to have been buried near Sokhumi, in the village of Anakopia, and Saint Matthias, who is said to have preached in the southwest of Georgia and to have been buried in Gonio, a village not far from Batumi. The church also claims the presence in Georgia of the Apostles Bartholomew and Thaddeus, who are said to have come north from Armenia.
Conversion of Iberia
The propagation of Christianity in present-day Georgia before the 4th century is still poorly known. The first documented event in this process is the preaching of Saint Nino and its consequences, although the exact dates are still debated. Saint Nino, honored as Equal to the Apostles, was, according to tradition, the daughter of a Roman general from Cappadocia. She preached in the Caucasian Kingdom of Iberia (also known as Kartli) in the first half of the 4th century, and her intercession eventually led to the conversion of King Mirian III, his wife, Queen (later Saint) Nana, and their family. Cyril Toumanoff dates the conversion of Mirian to 334, and his official baptism and subsequent adoption of Christianity as the official religion of Iberia to 337.
From the first centuries C.E., the cult of Mithras, pagan beliefs, and Zoroastrianism were commonly practiced in Georgia. However, they gradually began to decline, even though Zoroastrianism became a second established religion of Iberia after the Peace of Acilisene in 378, and more precisely by the mid-fifth century.
The royal baptism and the organization of the church were accomplished by priests sent from Constantinople by Constantine the Great. The conversion of the people of Iberia proceeded quickly in the plains, but pagan beliefs long persisted in the mountain regions. The western Kingdom of Lazica was politically and culturally distinct from Iberia at that time, and culturally more integrated into the Roman Empire; some of its cities already had bishops by the time of the First Council of Nicaea (325).
Expansion and transformation of the church The conversion of Iberia marked only the beginning of the formation of the Georgian Orthodox Church. In the following centuries, various processes took place that shaped the church and gave it, by the beginning of the 11th century, the main characteristics that it has retained to this day. These processes concerned the institutional status of the church within Eastern Christianity, its evolution into a national church with authority over all of Georgia, and the dogmatic development of the church.
Autocephaly In the 4th and 5th centuries, the Church of Iberia was strictly subordinated to the Apostolic See of Antioch: all of its bishops were consecrated in Antioch before being sent to Iberia. Around 480, "[i]n an attempt to secure Kartvelian support and to acknowledge local support for the empire, the Byzantine government recognized – and perhaps itself instigated – the change in status of the Kartvelian chief prelate from archbishop to catholicos".
"According to the Antiochene canonist and patriarch Theodore Balsamon (1140–95), 'When the Lord Peter was the Holy Patriarch of the great and godly city of Antioch, the Synod decided to make the Church of Iberia autocephalous.'" The patriarch he refers to must be Peter the Fuller (ca. 488). Even so, the church in Iberia did not gain complete independence from the mother church of Antioch. The church remained subordinate to the Antiochian Church; the catholicos could appoint local bishops, but until the 740s his own election had to be confirmed by the synod of the Church of Antioch, and even after the 8th century annual payments were made to the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch. "This situation of continuing canonical dependence was altered after the 11th century, when the catholicos of Mtskheta extended his jurisdiction over western Georgia. Since then, the head of the autocephalous Church of Georgia has been the catholicos-patriarch of all Georgia, and the church has been fully independent in its domestic and foreign affairs, with the exception of the period between 1811 and 1917. Melchisedek I (1010–33) was the first catholicos-patriarch of all Georgia."
However, other sources state that autocephaly was granted to the church at different dates. Ronald Roberson gives 467 as the year the Church became autocephalous. The Encyclopedia Britannica states that the autocephaly of the Church "was probably granted by the Eastern Roman emperor Zeno (474–491) with the consent of the patriarch of Antioch, Peter the Fuller." Other sources indicate 484 as the year the church became autocephalous. Rapp states that "Fully-fledged autocephaly [of the Georgian Church] would not be achieved [...] until the Arab conquest or later."
Territorial expansion and birth of a national church
At the beginning of the church’s history, what is now Georgia was not yet politically unified, and would not be until the beginning of the 11th century. The western half of the country, mostly constituted by the kingdom of Lazica, or Egrisi, was under much stronger influence from the Byzantine Empire than eastern Iberia, where Byzantine, Armenian, and Persian influences coexisted. Such division was reflected in major differences in the development of Christianity.
In the east, from the conversion of Mirian, the church developed under the protection of the kings of Iberia, or Kartli. A major factor in the development of the church in Iberia was the introduction of the Georgian alphabet. The impulse for a script adapted to the language of the local people stemmed from efforts to evangelize the population. A similar dynamic led to the creation of the Armenian alphabet. The exact origin of the script is still debated, but it must have emerged in the second half of the 4th century or the early 5th century.
The introduction of monasticism and its tremendous development in Iberia in the 6th century encouraged both foreign cultural influences and the development of local written works. From that moment, together with translations of the Bible, ecclesiastical literature in Georgian was produced in Iberia, most prominently biographies of saints, such as the "Martyrdom of the Holy Queen Shushanik" and the "Martyrdom of Saint Abo". Many of the saints from the first centuries of the church were not ethnic Georgians (Shushanik was an Armenian princess, and Abo an Arab), showing that the church had not yet acquired a strictly national character.
This changed only during the 7th century, after the wide political and cultural changes brought about by the Muslim conquests. This new menace to local culture, religion, and autonomy, and the difficulties in maintaining constant contact with other Christian communities, led to a drastic cultural change within the church, which became ethnically focused for the first time: it evolved into a "Kartvelian Church". The bishops and Catholicos were now all ethnic Georgians, as were the saints whose "Lives" were written from that period.
In the western half of Georgia, ancient Colchis, which had remained under stronger Roman influence, local churches were under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and were culturally and linguistically Hellenistic. Bishops from the port cities took part in ecumenical councils, from the Council of Nicaea (325), together with those from the Byzantine territories. From the 6th century, those churches, whose language remained Greek, were headed by a metropolitan in Phasis.