"Georgia: Shio Mujiri elected 142nd Catholicos-Patriarch, taking the name Shio III" Carlo Coppola
In a synodal session held behind closed doors, in the climate of solemn reserve that has for centuries accompanied the great decisions of the Eastern Churches, the thirty-nine members of the Holy Synod of the Georgian Orthodox Church elected Metropolitan Shio Mujiri of Senaki and Chkhorotsky as the 142nd Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia. Twenty-two votes out of thirty-nine — a significant majority, though not a plebiscite — consecrated the choice of a prelate with a singular biography and an ecclesiastical career firmly rooted at the highest levels of the Georgian hierarchy: a man who for years had already exercised, by the will of his predecessor, the function of Locum Tenens or Vicar of the Patriarchal Throne, in that prudent continuity which the Eastern Churches sometimes know how to arrange with discreet foresight.
The new full name is therefore Shio III, Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, Archbishop of Mtskheta–Tbilisi and Metropolitan Bishop of Bichvinta and Tskhum-Abkhazia; he is fifty-seven years old. His secular name is Elizbar Mujiri, consecrated with the name of Saint Shio of Mgvime — a sixth-century anchorite, one of the "Thirteen Syrian Fathers" who spread monasticism in Georgia — and he belongs to that generation of churchmen formed in the difficult balance between spiritual tradition, post-Soviet reconstruction, and the new geopolitical tensions of the Caucasus. Even before embracing monastic life, in 1993 he had attended the Tbilisi State Conservatory: a detail only apparently marginal, which instead reveals a profound artistic sensibility, for in the great Byzantine traditions beauty is never mere ornament, but theology made visible and audible in the liturgy. After completing his theological degree at the Batumi Seminary in 1999, the future patriarch perfected his studies at the Moscow Theological Academy and the Orthodox Humanitarian University of Saint Tikhon, completing his academic path in 2005. The Holy Synod consecrated him bishop in 2003; his elevation to metropolitan came in 2010. A regular canonical trajectory, traversed with the patience of monastic ascesis and with that institutional discipline which often characterizes the great leaders of Eastern Orthodoxy.
Shio III succeeds Ilia II, 141st Catholicos-Patriarch, who passed away last March 17th at the age of ninety-three after nearly half a century of pontificate. A hieratic and at the same time immensely popular figure, Ilia II had for decades embodied something broader than mere ecclesiastical magisterium: a moral presence capable of traversing the political and confessional fractures of contemporary Georgia. Around his death the country gathered in a rare national mourning, of the kind produced only when a patriarch succeeds in transforming himself into a living symbol of a people's identity.
In a time of profound change and new regional challenges, the election of Shio Mujiri opens for the Georgian Orthodox Church an important phase of continuity and spiritual responsibility. The new Catholicos-Patriarch will be called upon to safeguard the great ecclesial tradition of Georgian Orthodoxy, while at the same time strengthening internal unity, and positioning himself with equilibrium in the moral role of the Church in the life of the Country.
To the new Patriarch and to the Orthodox Church of Georgia we address our most sincere wishes for a fruitful and authoritative ministry, guided by pastoral wisdom, a spirit of service, and attention to the future of Georgia and its pastoral needs.
