Georgian Patriarch Concelebrates Liturgy With Russian Patriarch During

[Apotheoun]

Georgian Patriarch concelebrates Liturgy with Russian Patriarch During his visit to Russia

 

 

The video below contains excerpts from the liturgical concelebration at Uspensky Cathderal in the Moscow Kremlin during the visit of the Patriarch of Georgia to Russia on 22 January 2013:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIfnBV3--sc

 

Portions of the liturgy were sung by the Tbilisi Holy Trinity Cathedral Choir; while other portions were sung by the Moscow Sretensky Monastery Choir.

 

The present Uspensky (Dormition) Cathedral building was consecrated for divine worship in A.D. 1479.

Edited February 9, 2013 by Apotheoun

[Apotheoun]

Catholicos-Patriarch Elijah (Ilia) II has served as Patriarch of the Georgian Church since his election and enthronement in December 1977.

[PadrePioOfPietrelcino]

I see no video...just me?

[Apotheoun]

I see no video...just me?

I see the video, but maybe some browsers don't display it.  Maybe this will help:

 

Video as a link

[Era Might]

I didn't know Georgia was so prominent it had its own Patriarch. #GoBraves

[Apotheoun]

A video about Georgia - One Of The First Christian Countries In The World

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z4zbTKJb3s

 

 

Below is the information about the video found on the YouTube page:

 

Christianity, first preached by the Apostles Simon and Andrew in the first century, became the state religion of Kartli (Iberia) in 327, making Georgia the second oldest Christian country after Armenia.The final conversion of Georgia to Christianity in 327 is credited to St. Nino of Cappadocia. She was the only daughter of pious and noble parents, the Roman general Zabulon, a relative of the great martyr St. George, and Susanna, sister of the Patriarch of Jerusalem. The Georgian Orthodox Church, originally part of the Church of Antioch, gained its autocephaly in the 5th century during the reign of Vakhtang Gorgasali, and the Bible was also translated into Georgian in the 5th century. Notably, the oldest example of Georgian writing is an asomtavruli inscription in a church in Bethlehem from AD 430. The Georgians' new faith, which replaced pagan beliefs and Zoroastrianism , was to place them permanently on the front line of conflict between the Islamic and Christian worlds. As was true elsewhere, the Christian church in Georgia was crucial to the development of a written language, and most of the earliest written works were religious texts. After Georgia was annexed by the Russian Empire, the Russian Orthodox Church took over the Georgian church in 1811. The colorful frescoes and wall paintings typical of Georgian cathedrals were whitewashed by the Russian occupiers.

 

The Georgian church regained its autonomy only when Russian rule ended in 1918. Neither the Georgian Menshevik government nor the Bolshevik regime that followed considered revitalization of the Georgian church an important goal, however. Soviet rule brought severe purges of the Georgian church hierarchy and constant repression of Orthodox worship. As elsewhere in the Soviet Union, many churches were destroyed or converted into secular buildings. This history of repression encouraged the incorporation of religious identity into the strong nationalist movement in twentieth-century Georgia and the quest of Georgians for religious expression outside the official, governmentcontrolled church. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, opposition leaders, especially Zviad Gamsakhurdia, criticized corruption in the church hierarchy. When Ilia II became the patriarch (catholicos) of the Georgian Orthodox Church in the late 1970s, he brought order and a new morality to church affairs, and Georgian Orthodoxy experienced a revival. In 1988 Moscow permitted the patriarch to begin consecrating and reopening closed churches, and a large-scale restoration process began.

 

Svetitskhoveli Cathedral, known as the burial place of Christ's mantle, which was brought to Mtskheta after the crucifixion by Elias, a Georgian Jew from Iberia, is the first Georgian church.[9] It is notable that Georgia falls under the patronage of the Virgin Mary—according to Saint Stefan, when the Apostles cast lots to determine in which country God desired each of them to preach the Gospel, the destiny of the mother of God was to preach in Iberia.

 

Jacques de Vitry and Sir John Maundeville stated that Georgians are called Georgian because they especially revere and venerate St. George, and that when they go on pilgrimage to the Lord's Sepulchre, they march into the Holy City with banners displayed, and without paying tribute to anyone. However the accepted explanation among Georgians themselves is that the country was so named in Greek, from a root meaning "farmland".

[Evangetholic]

Eastern worship is otherworldly. I know all liturgical worship ultimately patterned itself after the Temple, but the East always seems like a peak into heaven itself.

[Evangetholic]

The current (by my lights) rightful Empress of Russia had a mother who was a Georgian princess.

[Apotheoun]

A brief BBC News report on a Georgian Orthodox Stylite monk and his heroic efforts in rebuilding a cliff top monastic shrine:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wv0wq_c8kPs

[Apotheoun]

Eastern worship is otherworldly. I know all liturgical worship ultimately patterned itself after the Temple, but the East always seems like a peak into heaven itself.

Yes.  Prince Vladimir's conversion to Orthodoxy is a case in point, for when his ambassadors returned from their visit to Constantinople they told him that "in truth God has His dwelling with men" in the temple of Hagia Sophia, and that they would never be able to forget the beauty they saw in that sacred place.