Tbilisi Holy Trinity Cathedral priest claims Patriarchate was “unaware” of controversial icon featuring Stalin

Archimandrite Iovane Mchedlishvili, a priest at the Holy Trinity Cathedral, asserted on Friday that the Georgian Patriarchate was uninformed about the presence of a controversial icon within the cathedral. The icon in question depicts Soviet Dictator Stalin alongside St. Matrona of Moscow and was donated by the pro-Russian Alliance of Patriots party.

Taking responsibility for the situation, Mchedlishvili stated, “I, as the priest of the Trinity Cathedral, take responsibility for the situation and sincerely seek forgiveness from the mother church and the believing community. I should have informed the Patriarchate about the placement of the icon.”

In his earlier Christmas comments, Mchedlishvili mentioned that the icon had been in the cathedral for several months “without drawing attention”. He clarified, “It’s not exactly an icon. It’s a small image created by one of the iconographers that went unnoticed, except by journalists who then reported on it. This ‘icon’ has been there for several months. It is not prominently displayed, but the story was spread by some individuals.”

A video circulated on social networks on January 9 showed the icon smeared with blue paint. At that time, the icon was in a less prominent location on the right side of the central entrance. It was cleaned within hours and relocated to a more visible place on January 10.

Later, it was revealed that civil activist Nata Peradze had defaced the icon. On January 10, representatives of the pro-Russian Conservative Movement rallied near her house, citing “insulting the icon.” The rally included insults not only to Peradze but also to the journalists present.

On January 11, the Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church of Georgia issued a statement urging the donors of the icon to alter the depiction of Stalin, or they would modify it themselves. The Patriarchate clarified that the Russian Church did not include the meeting between Stalin and Saint Matrona in the “canonical text of her life” due to insufficient evidence.

Irma Inashvili, the head of the Alliance of Patriots, expressed acceptance of the Patriarchate’s position: “If the Church decides to request the iconographer to replace this fragment with another content, as the Patriarchate suggests, we must comply. However, this does not mean we should forgive someone for insulting the icon!”Cleric Ilia Chigladze was the first to share information about the icon on January 6.