GEORGIAN CHURCH DURING THE PERIOD OF OTTOMAN AND KIZILBASH RULE

Abstract

The paper discourses the political and religious situation of Georgia in the18th century, during the period of Ottoman and Kizilbash rule. The main source of this period is a work of V. Batonishvili, which meticulously accurately and visibly presents the political-economic, social-cultural, ethnic and religious situation of Georgia divided into kingdoms and principalities.
In Georgia, the Orthodox faith had a great influence in the formation, strengthening and dignified protection of Georgian culture, traditions, values and merits. The main goal of the secular and ecclesiastical authorities was to firmly protect these values and true beliefs and pass them on to posterity. Over the centuries, thousands of Georgians, from kings and queens to ordinary citizens, sacrificed themselves for this goal.
After the XVI century, when Georgia became the sphere of influence of Persia and Ottomans, our country appeared in a very hard situation. The situation became highly complicated in the 17th-18th centuries, when the Georgian kingdoms passed into the hands of Muslim rulers and propaganda against the Orthodox people had began: the greatest privileges were granted to those who converted to the Muslim, Armenian and Catholic faiths, which resulted in the decline of the Orthodox faith and the degeneration of Georgian values. Georgian rules and customs were suddently forgotten, foreign names were established, temples were desecrated, the number of priests was reduced, the unanimity and bravery of the ancestors was replaced by fun and pastime, which was well used by the enemy.
Some of the Georgian politicians believed that the process of moral degeneration could be stopped only in the depths of the Orthodox Church. The Georgian kings, outwardly Muslims, but Christians at heart, felt their responsibility before God and the country, as a result of which King of Kartli - Vakhtang V (1658-1675) tried to correct this process through his national and cultural activities, and then George XI ( 1675-1688, 1703-1709) and Vakhtang VI (1703-1714, 1716-1724) continued.
The main goal was unchanged: to restore the political, cultural and spiritual integrity of the nation, for which a very careful diplomatic relationship was needed, which would not irritate either the Persian or Ottoman empires and would protect the interests of Georgia!
At the beginning of the XVIII century, when the situation in the outside world changed in favor of Georgia, the Georgian kings tried to use the favorable conditions properly for the beneficial activities of the country, which resulted in the Christian approval of the Georgian kings on the royal throne of Kartli and Kakheti by the Shah of Persia, coronation was held on October 1 (14) 1745, at Svetitskhovli Patriarchal Cathedral in a particularly solemn situation!