Khichauri, Shuakhevi, Georgia, October 27, 2026
Photo: sazu.ge
Nearly 1,500 more people have become Godchildren of His Holiness Catholicos-Patriarch Shio of All Georgia.
A mass Baptism took place in the village of Khichauri in the Shuakhevi Municipality, in the Diocese of Skhalta, on October 25, the Patriarchate reports.
His Holiness blessed his new Godchildren and gave each of them a cross as a gift.
In his homily, Patriarch Shio said about 1,300 people were baptized in Upper Adjara that day, both children and adults. He said the whole of Georgia and the whole Church share in the joy, since the Church’s mysteries aren’t performed for one person alone. Clergy, chanters, godparents, and the entire Church take part, he said.
“We’re all members of Christ’s Church, saints and sinners alike,” the Patriarch said. He told the new members they’d been received into “our great Church family” as loved ones, and that, as St. Paul says, they’re no longer merely children of the flesh but children of the Kingdom of God.
Patriarch Shio described Baptism as a means of spiritual rebirth and deliverance from evil and from captivity to the devil. “But first of all, the Mystery of Baptism is union with the Church,” he said, calling it the door into Christ’s Church, without which the soul can’t be saved. He cited Christ’s words that whoever isn’t born of water and the Spirit can’t enter the Kingdom. By going into the water, he said, a person seems to die to the world and then rises again to a new God-pleasing life. All earlier sins are forgiven, including original sin, he said.
Speaking directly to the adults who were baptized, the Patriarch said faith is essential. Without it, only the outward side of the service is carried out, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit aren’t given. He added that a person also has to know the main dogmas of the Church, which are set out in the Creed.
He closed by saying the day proves that the Georgian people, and the Adjarans in particular, keep walking toward Christ. “If we stand firm and unshakable on the foundations of our faith and our national values,” he said, God will always be with Georgia, the Mother of God will protect it, and the country will grow stronger and be made whole. He then blessed the new baptized, their godparents, parents, and families, and all of Adjara and Georgia.
The Patriarchate earlier noted that this Baptism is not part of the same program instituted by His Holiness Patriarch Ilia whereby the third and later children from Orthodox families could become his Godchildren. Rather, this was a mass Baptism of adults and children.
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