Georgian Catholic Church - History of The Catholic Church in Georgia

History of The Catholic Church in Georgia

Christianity in Georgia began in earnest with the evangelization by Saint Nino in the 4th century. Georgian Christianity then developed in the Byzantine Orthodox tradition, although contact with Rome did occur. The East-West Schism did not immediately end contacts between Georgia and Rome, although the break was recognized by the mid-13th century.

Around this time, Catholic missionaries became active in Georgia, setting up small Latin communities. A Latin-Rite bishopric was established in 1329 at Tbilisi, but this was allowed to lapse after the appointment of the fourteenth and last of its line of bishops in 1507, owing to a lack of support among Georgians.

In 1626, the Theatine and Capuchin orders established new missions in Georgia. In the following centuries a community of Latin Catholics began to form, members of this community commonly being referred to as "French", which was the dominant nationality of the missionaries. Both orders were expelled by the Russian government in 1845.

However, an agreement between Pope Pius IX and Tsar Nicholas I in 1848 permitted the establishment of the Latin-Rite diocese of Tiraspol. This was based in Russia, but all Transcaucasian Catholics, including the Georgians, were aggregated to it. The Russian part of that diocese is now called Saint Clement in Saratov.

Towards the end of the 19th century, some Georgian Catholics wished to use the Byzantine rite traditional in Georgia, but were thwarted by the outlawing of Byzantine "Uniate" groups. Accordingly, since the tsars forbade their Catholic subjects to use the Byzantine Rite, and the Holy See did not promote its use among the Georgians, some of them, clergy as well as laity, adopted the Armenian Rite. There existed at that time the Armenian Catholic diocese of Artvin, which had been set up in Russian Transcaucasia in 1850. It is now a merely titular see, listed as such in the Annuario Pontificio.

Outside the Russian Empire, in Constantinople, Father Peter Karishiaranti (Pétre Kharistshirashvili) founded in 1861 two religious congregations of the Immaculate Conception, one for men, the other for women. These served Georgian Catholics living in the then capital of the Ottoman Empire. They also served in Montaubon, France. These congregations are long extinct, although some of their members were still alive in the late 1950s. The building that housed the male congregation, Fery-Quoa, still stands in Istanbul, now in private ownership. Their clergy gave Georgian Catholics in Constantinople the possibility to worship in accordance with the Georgian Byzantine rite, but they were under the authority of the local Latin Catholic bishop. The Georgian Catholic priest Michel Tamarati was the first to study the history of Catholicism in Georgia, eventually producing the oft-cited L'Eglise géorgienne des origines jusqu' à nos jours in French in 1911.

Only after the granting of religious freedom in Russia in 1905 did some Georgian Catholics resume the Byzantine rite, without reaching the stage of having a separate diocese (particular Church) established for them.

At the outbreak of the First World War, Georgian Catholics were some 50,000. About 40,000 of these were of Latin rite, the others mainly of Armenian rite. Canonically, they depended on the Latin diocese of Tiraspol, which had its headquarters at Saratov on the Volga.

In the brief period of Georgian independence between 1918 and 1921, some influential Georgians expressed an interest in union with the Church of Rome, and an envoy was sent from Rome in 1919 to examine the situation. As a result of the onset of civil war and Soviet occupation, this came to nothing.

In 1920 it was estimated that of 40,000 Catholics in Georgia, 32,000 were Latins and the remainder of the Armenian rite.

Some sources state that, in the 1930s, an exarch was appointed for Byzantine-Rite Catholics in Georgia. This statement is not backed up by objective evidence, and it would have been indeed astounding if the Holy See had chosen that period, when the Soviet government was forcing all Byzantine-Rite Catholics in its power into union with the Russian Orthodox Church, to name for the first time a bishop for the extremely few such Catholics in Georgia, instead of appointing one for the Latin or Armenian Catholics in the country.