Your Holiness, the Rector of
Tbilisi Theological Academy and Seminary, its Academic Council,
Professors and Students, with great reverence, respect and
gratitude, congratulate You on the forty-fourth jubilee of Your
enthronement.
Your merit before the Georgian
Orthodox Church and the entire Georgian nation is inestimable.
Right from the day of Your enthronement, You set a goal for
Yourself to revive in our society spirituality, ecclesiastical
education and science, which would not have been possible without
higher theological schools.
It is due to Your special efforts
and great international authority that the Apostolic Orthodox
Church of Georgia gained worldwide recognition of its historical
Autocephaly, which was the most important event in the life of our
nation.
This fact was preceded by the
establishment of the theological school - Tbilisi Theological
Academy, which seemed unattainable in that epoch.
As the result of Your work,
Gelati Theological Academy as well as theological seminaries in
different regions of our country were established.
Directly connected with Your name
is the establishment of new dioceses, selection and ordaination of
new hierarchs, creation of Georgian dioceses beyond our country,
the latter conditioned by Your special care for our compatriots
living abroad, the restoration of monastic life and unprecedented
ecclesiastical reconstruction, which was crowned by the
construction of the Holy Trinity Cathedral, opening of parochial
schools, reviving of the ancient Georgian ecclesiastical
architecture, icon painting, church singing, canonization of
Georgian figures of great dignity, establishing of the rule of
seven daily prayers as a means of spiritual unification of our
people and the outpouring of divine grace upon the Georgian
nation.
Through Your efforts were
established: Gelati Academy of Sciences, “Georgian University” of
Andrew the First-Called, the TV channel of the Patriarchate
“Ertsulovnrba”, Radio “Iveria”, St. Giorgi the Athonite Higher
School of Church Singing and a number of other higher educational
centers of secular and theological education. Ecclesiastical
publishing house has reached a new height. The “International
Charitable Foundation for the Revival and Development of
Spirituality, Culture and Science” has been established, which
implements projects of national importance, Constitutional
Agreement was signed between the Church and the state, according to
which the highest legal status of the Orthodox Church of Georgia
was defined.
Along with the restoration of the
territorial integrity of the country, You attach great importance
to improving the demographic situation. It is the result of Your
special merit and extraordinary blessing that up to 43,000 of Your
godchildren have been added to the Georgian nation and the Church
of Georgia.
You have been serving the Church,
the Georgian nation, for 44 years now. In the most difficult times,
the Most High God has chosen and exalted You, and bestowed upon You
the heaviest and most honorable cross of the leader of the ancient
Church of Iberia, which You have borne with Godly love for our
people and special spiritual uprightness, due to which the Georgian
nation, distinguished by dignity, has the greatest love and respect
for You.
Your Holiness, it is impossible
to fully describe Your merits. Therefore, we have mentioned just
only a few. Realizing the significance of Your personality for our
country and our Church, we ask God to grant You good health and
many more years of life, so that the grace of your guidance and
your patriarchal prayer before God support our homeland for years
and years to come.