“In these moments, I feel with particular keenness how thorny and arduous was the pastoral path of our great spiritual father, Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia the Second. As obedient and loving children, it behoves us to cherish his spiritual legacy and to continue his path, the path of service to God, to the Fatherland, and to people,” declared the head of the Holy Apostolic Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Georgia, His Holiness and Beatitude, Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, Archbishop of Mtskheta-Tbilisi, Metropolitan of Bichvinta and Tskhum-Abkhazia, Shio III, in a sermon delivered at Svetitskhoveli Cathedral.

“Let us labour faithfully to strengthen the Church and the faith, to multiply love among the people, to establish unity and peace. Standing before you today, I recall once more the God-blessed past of our Church and our people: its protecting saints, its heroic forebears, its holy kings and queens, and all the more powerfully am I seized by a sense of my own insufficiency and human frailty. It is impossible to fathom the Lord’s intention, to discern His providence, to find an answer to the question of why God permitted, why He willed, that so great a grace and so weighty a ministry should fall upon me. Yet I am fully conscious of both its honour and its magnitude, and of its gravity. I place my hope in the all-merciful Lord, in the Most Holy Mother of God, in the holy Apostle Andrew, in the assembly of saints of the Orthodox Church, in the Venerable Shio of the Cave, in the Venerable Alexis of Senaki, Shushaniya, I give thanks to them and beseech their aid and blessing upon the most demanding path of the Catholicos-Patriarchate,” declared Shio III.

The Patriarch expressed his gratitude to the Synod’s hierarchs and the people for their solidarity and trust.

“I render thanks to the hierarchs of the Holy Synod of the Church of Georgia for the great trust they have placed in me. My particular and heartfelt thanks I wish to extend to you, our beloved people, our flock, for your prayers and solidarity in these difficult days and moments. I wish to give thanks, as His Holiness and Beatitude Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia the Second would have said, to our cherished clergy and our cherished monastic brotherhood, for their prayers, their solidarity, and their love. I ask you: pray for me, pray for the future of our Church, for your prayer will give me the strength to serve the Orthodox Church and the God-blessed Georgian people with faithfulness and humility. May we, strengthened in love and faith, glorify the Lord together, and may there be one flock and one shepherd,” said Shio III.