The Georgian Orthodox Church has elected a new Catholicos-Patriarch. The locum tenens of the Patriarchal Throne and Metropolitan of Senaki and Chkhorotsku, Shio (Mujiri), has been elected as the 142nd Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia.
The late Catholicos Patriarch Ilia II announced an appointment of Shio as the patriarchal locum tenens, that is a church official who would act as a temporary head of the Georgian Orthodox Church for 40 days after the incumbent Patriarch died, until the Holy Synod elected a new Patriarch, that was amid the ongoing internal tensions within the church leadership, widely publicized in the aftermath of the “cyanide case”, in which a Georgian Orthodox priest was arrested and ruled guilty on charges of plotting to murder the Patriarch’s personal secretary and adviser with cyanide.
At that time, the Georgian media suggested this might indicate Ilia II’s support for Shio’s candidacy as a future patriarch.
