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Notes -
The significant life and death of Patriarch Ilia II of the insignificant country of Georgia
The Head of the Georgian Orthodox Church just passed away, leading the officially secular government to institute five days of national mourning. According to surveys, Ilia was the most trusted man in the Caucasus. The public’s trust in his “patriarchy” peaked at 94% in 2010, at a time when trust in the parliament stood at a pitiful 34%. Ilia presided over the most interesting rise of religiosity ever recorded. In 1977, when he entered his position, Geogia was in possession of only a few dozen churches. Youth church attendance sat at 7%, and the perceived importance of religion was somewhere below 50% (likely quite far below, but there is little data before 1993). By the end of his life, 2500 orthodox churches were built, youth attendance rose to 60% by 2010, perceived importance of religion rose to 85% in 2014, and general weekly attendance jumped from 27% in 1996 to 44% in 2014. Even well past the end of Soviet atheism, religiosity continued to rose, with monthly prayer increasing from 57% in 2007 to 75% in 2020. Much of this data is explored in the interesting paper, “A counterexample to secularization theory? Assessing the Georgian religious revival”.
Serendipitously, I was exploring Georgian Orthodox music at the time of patriarch’s passing. The god of the algorithm and the God of the gods rewarded my search for good music and led me to the mass held in honor of the Patriarch. If you like choral music, or the aesthetics of Game of Thrones, you might like it. I personally think the aesthetics are peak. The godchildren of the Patriarch led his procession throughout the capital city, though it’s hard to know how many gathered for the occasion because he had 50,000 godchildren. Why so many? In an effort to increase the Georgian TFR, the patriarch promised to be the Godfather of every third child born to an Orthodox Christian family. The result was an enormous religiously inspired baby boom:
The speaker of the Georgian parliament honored him as follows: “Georgia has lost a spiritual father, our most Holy Patriarch, who dedicated every minute and second of his life to serving Christ, defending the homeland, and caring for his flock.”
On the same day as Chuck Norris. Let's hope St Peter doesn't mix who's who.
If he does, a roundhouse kick to the face should convince him to straighten things out.
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