Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk’s visit to Georgia continues

DECR Communication service, 01.10.2026.

On the 1st of October 2026, the Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk, who is currently in Georgia, visited holy sites in the eastern part of the country.

Accompanied by hierarchs of the Georgian Orthodox Church: Metropolitan Andrew of Gori and Ateni and Metropolitan Nicholas of Akhalkalaki, Kumurdo and Kars, as well as Archpriest Nikolai Balashov, Adviser to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’, Archpriest Igor Yakimchuk, Deputy Chairman of the DECR, Archpriest Vladimir Alexandrov, a cleric of the Russian Orthodox Church in Tbilisi, and Priest Nikolai Vasin, Secretary to the DECR Chairman, Metropolitan Anthony visited the Monastery of St David of Gareji. Founded in the 6th century, the monastery played a major role in the spread of monasticism in the land of Iberia. The pilgrims fr om the Russian Orthodox Church prayed at the tombs of St David and St Dodo and venerated the relics of the Holy Martyrs of Gareji who suffered during the invasion of the Persian Shah Abbas I in the 17th century.

The DECR Chairman and his companions then visited the Monastery of the Nativity of the Mother of God in Kachreti, wh ere they were warmly welcomed by the monastery’s abbot, Archimandrite Anthony (Kandelaki).

The final destination of the pilgrimage programme was the Bodbe Convent dedicated to St Nino, Equal-to-the-Apostles, Enlightener of Georgia. Metropolitan Anthony celebrated a moleben at the saint’s tomb in the southern chapel of the monastery’s Cathedral of St George. The convent’s abbess, Hegumenia Theodora (Makhviladze), showed the guests the newly built monastery churches dedicated to St Nino, Equal-to-the-Apostles; St Gabriel of Samtavro; and St Tamara (Marjanishvili), the Venerable Confessor, and spoke about the history of the monastery and its life today.

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Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk’s visit to Georgia continues

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