The Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia and the spiritual leader of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Ilia II, turned 89 today.
The parents of the Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, Ilia II, were from Georgia, Kazbegi municipality: father, George Shiolashvili, son of Simon from the village of Sno, mother, Natalia Kobaidze, daughter of Ioseb from the village of Sioni. In 1927, they bought a house in Vladikavkaz, where the future Patriarch of Georgia was born on January 4, 1933. The parents baptized the three-day-old newborn on Christmas Day in a Georgian church and named the child Irakli in honor of Erekle II.
After graduating from the 22nd high school in Vladikavkaz in 1952, he continued his studies at the Moscow Orthodox Theological Academy.
On April 16, 1957, Ilia II, a second-year student at the Theological Academy, was ordained a monk at the St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Tbilisi with the blessing of the Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia, Melchizedek III.
Ilia II graduated from the Moscow Theological Academy in 1960 with a first degree.
On August 26, 1963, then Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia, Ephraim II, consecrated Archimandrite Ilia as the Bishop of the Diocese of Batumi-Shemoqmedi, and in 1967 he became the Bishop of Tskhum-Abkhazia. Two years later, Ilia II was promoted to the rank of Metropolitan. He spent 11 years in Sokhumi.
After the death of the then Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia, David V, on December 23, 1977, the Holy Synod of the Georgian Orthodox Church elected Catholicos Ilia II as the Patriarch. Ilia II was enthroned on December 25, 1977, in Svetitskhoveli Cathedral.
By the decision of the Synod on December 21, 2010, the title of the Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia was defined as follows: Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, the Archbishop of Mtskheta-Tbilisi and Metropolitan Bishop of Bichvinta and Tskhum-Abkhazia, His Holiness and Beatitude Ilia II.
