Icon of St. Matrona of Moscow, featuring Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, was spotted in Tbilisi's Holy Trinity Cathedral, stirring public outcry.
Despite the public outcry, the icon is still being kept in the cathedral. Andria Jagmaidze, Press Speaker of the Patriarchate of the Georgian Orthodox Church claimed the issue was brought to the public’s attention to “overshadow Christmas.”
The news was first broken by Ilia Chigladze, a Georgian archpriest critical of the Russian influence in the Georgian Orthodox Church, on Facebook.
Giorgi Kandelaki, a former MP currently at the Soviet Past Research Laboratory, a think-tank, shot and shared footage of the icon.
The icon is titled St Matrona blesses Stalin, depicting an alleged meeting between the two in 1941 when Stalin allegedly met Matrona to receive a blessing to defend Moscow from the Nazis.
Theologians say, however, that the meeting never took place and was made up in the 1990s to construct the mythology of Stalin as a “patron of the church.”
Critics say the icon is an example of the Russian information warfare and weaponization of the soviet memory and Joseph Stalin’s figure in particular aiming to cultivate anti-western Georgian ethno-religious nationalism.
It later emerged that the Icon was donated to the Cathedral by Irma Inashvili, leader of the Russia-linked and pro-Putin, Alliance of Patriots party.
Members of the Georgian Government lined up to attend the Christmas service on the eve of the Orthodox Christmas right near the icon without hesitation or protest.
დახურვა