17/04/2026
🗓️🔍 Georgia: Freedom of Religion or Belief, Equality, and Secularity - March 2026
📎 Monitoring report in Englishhttps://tdi.ge/sites/default/files/monitoring_forb_equality_and_secularity_march_2026.pdf
Context:
📌The reporting period of March 2026 coincided with a turning point in Georgia’s recent history. On 17 March 2026, Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II of the Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC) passed away.
📌This period is also notable because, for the first time in the history of independent Georgia, a new Patriarch must be elected. However, there is a risk that the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party may attempt to influence this process.
📌The statement from the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service can be assessed as an apparent attempt at external interference in the Patriarchal election, indicating that Russian intelligence is interested in the decision-making process.
📌In principle, the GOC is protected from state interference in its internal affairs by the Constitution of Georgia and the Constitutional Agreement between the Church and the State. However, in 2024, GD attempted to undermine this autonomy at the legislative level.
📌Moreover, alleged large-scale surveillance and wiretapping of clergy revealed through the anonymously leaked files of the State Security Service in 2021 point to GD’s efforts to control and subordinate the clergy.
During the reporting period, in the context of religion, the main narratives promoted by GD, affiliated groups, and their propagandist media included:
🔹A “religious war” is being waged against Georgia and the Georgian Orthodox Church by “internal and external enemies”;
Political opposition, civil society, pro-European demonstrators, and in general, all opponents labeled as “radicals” by GD and its media were portrayed as enemies of the Church, religion, and the Patriarch;
🔹The European Union was presented as an enemy of Georgia, seeking to weaken the Orthodox Church and religious identity.
🔹OSCE’s “Moscow Mechanism” was framed as a Western political tool against Georgia.
🔹GD was portrayed as the force defending the Church and Orthodoxy;
🔹So-called “external” and “internal enemies” were blamed for attempting to interfere in the election of the new Patriarch.
🔹Respect for Ilia II was equated with support for his designated locum tenens, Metropolitan Shio Mujiri (one of the potential candidates for patriarchate), while criticism of him was framed as rejecting the Patriarch’s choice;
🔹The issue of condolences following the Patriarch’s death was instrumentalized to claim that European leaders and “Eurobureaucrats” failed to express condolences to the Georgian people.
📍As in previous reporting periods, a small number of clergy continued to criticize and condemn the arrests and politically motivated prosecution of activists and opposition representatives.
