Saturday, March 25, 2017

Georgian Orthodox Church declares its resumed autocephaly.



 Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia Kyrion II, who was elevated to that role upon the Georgian Orthodox Church declaring autocephaly in 1917.  He'd returned from monastic exile to assume that role.  He was murdered by an unknown assailant on June 27, 1918, and his murder remains a mystery to this day.

On this day in 1917, the Georgian Orthodox Church restored its autocephalous (self-governing) status within the Orthodox family of Apostolic churches.

This is likely a somewhat complicated story, and I'm not familiar with it, but it seems that it had been autocephalous since 1010, however, in 1811 it was put under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church, with there being a great deal of protest about that in the Georgian community. 

Following the overthrow of Czar Nicholas II, the Georgian Bishops unilaterally restored autocephaly on this date. In spite of the obvious stress the Russian Empire was under, the Russian Orthodox Church did not accept this.  Oddly enough, in spite of enduring two decades of Stalinist repression of the most severe varieties, it was Stalin who ordered the Russian Orthodox Church to recognize its independence in 1943, at which time Stalin was easing up on the churches in an effort to gain the support of every element of Soviet society in the face of the German invasion.

 

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