Catholicate of Abkhazia

The Catholicate of Abkhazia (Georgian: აფხაზეთის საკათალიკოსო) was a subdivision of the Georgian Orthodox Church that existed as an independent entity in western Georgia from the 1470s to 1814. It was headed by the Catholicos (later, Catholicos Patriarch), officially styled as the Catholicos Patriarch of Imereti, Odishi, Ponto-Abkhaz-Guria, Racha-Lechkhum-Svaneti, Ossetians, Dvals, and all of the North. The residence of the Catholicoi was at Bichvinta (now Pitsunda) in Abkhazia (hence, the name of the Catholicate), but was moved to the Gelati Monastery in Imereti in the late 16th century. In 1814, the office of the Catholicos of Abkhazia was abolished by the Russian Empire which would take control of the Georgian church until 1917.

The date when the Catholicate of Abkhazia was established is not completely clear, but most scholars put it between the ninth and eleventh centuries. The titular Catholicoi of Abkhazia were only occasionally mentioned in the contemporary sources and did not enjoy independence at that time, but were subordinated to the Georgian Orthodox Patriarchal see at Mtskheta. According to a different account, Abkhazian bishoprics changed allegiance from Constantinople to Mtskheta in the beginning of the 10th cebturty.Rayfield, Donald (2013). Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia. Reaktion Books. p. 62. ISBN .  The first written account on the Catholicate of Abkhazia dates to 1290. By that time, the Mongol rule had divided Georgia into its eastern and western parts, with the latter being de facto independent from the Mongol Ilkhanid dynasty, to which Georgia was a subject. The political independence of the western Georgian rulers, Kings of Imereti, might have also resulted in the revival of the Catholicate of Abkhazia, but it was not until the late 15th century, when it emerged as an independent religious entity. With the final disintegration of the unified monarchy of Georgia, a breakaway Bagratid branch in western Georgia with their capital at Kutaisi energetically promoted ecclesiastic freedom of their kingdom from the Patriarchate of Georgia. The Imeretian king Bagrat VI (1463-1478) managed to secure the support of Michael IV, Patriarch of Antioch who, at the king’s request, consecrated Archbishop Joachime of Tsaish and Bedia, as Catholicos of Abkhazia. To justify the break with the Mtskheta see, Michael issued a special document, The Law of Faith, in which he stated that western and eastern Georgia had different histories of conversion and, therefore, they should be independent from each other.

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