Callistratus (Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia)

Born April 12, 1866 in the family of a priest in the village of Tobanieri in Imereti (now Van district ).

He studied at the Kutaisi Theological School , and then at the Tiflis Theological Seminary , from which he graduated in 1888. He was distinguished in that and in another educational institution with his abilities and diligence, he graduated from the religious school and theological seminary first on the list ^[3] .

As a gifted student, David Sarajishvili sent him at his own expense to the Kiev Theological Academy ^[4] , which he graduated in 1892 with the title of Candidate of Theology .

In Kiev, he met his future wife, German Otilia Thomas, a Lutheran religious. Soon she adopted Orthodoxy with the name Nino ^[4] .

In 1892, Kallisrat Tsintsadze was ordained a priest for the Didubian Church of Tiflis (now Tbilisi). In 1903 he was transferred to the Tiflis Kvashvet church.

In 1909 he was elevated to the rank of archpriest .

While serving for thirty-two years in various temples in Tiflis, he held the following positions: he was the teacher of the Noble gymnasium, the men's gymnasium named after Levandovsky, the 1st men's gymnasium and was a board member of the Tiflis Theological Seminary. At the same time, pastoral activity was combined in his life with public life.

As a priest, Father Callistrat at the same time at various times served as a member of the City Council, secretary and member of academic societies ^[3] . He was a supporter of the restoration of the autocephaly of the Georgian Church.

After the opening of the University of Tbilisi in 1918, he was offered the title of professor and the opportunity to lecture, but in return they demanded to cut his beard and take off his robe, to which Archpriest Callistrat refused: “I will not change my flock!” Nevertheless, this did not prevent him from donating his huge library newly founded university ^[4] .

In 1923, Kalistrat Tsintsadze, together with the Catholicos-Patriarch Ambrose and other priests, were arrested and put in a prison in Metekhi . He was released in 1925.

Widowed, on October 31, 1925, without being tonsured a monk, he was consecrated as a bishop and at the same time elevated to the rank of Metropolitan of Manglis.

On June 21, 1932, at the VI Council of the Georgian Church, he was elected Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia , Archbishop of Mtskheta and Tbilisi. On June 24, his enthronement took place in the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral .

Having entered the administration of the Church, he sought to halt the process of closing, destroying and plundering temples and monasteries, tried to maintain loyal relations with the Soviet authorities and sought to ease tax burden on the Church. He has repeatedly drawn the attention of the Soviet authorities to violations of the law “On Freedom of Conscience”. Thanks to the joint actions of the Catholicos-Patriarch and the Georgian intelligentsia, the Tbilisi temples of Metekhi and Kvashveti , as well as the church of the Gelat monastery, were saved from destruction. The special concern of the Catholicos-Patriarch was to achieve recognition of the self-proclaimed autocephaly of the Georgian Church by the local Orthodox Churches.

During the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet government softened its religious policy and the Catholicos-Patriarch succeeded in improving the situation of the Church. At the personal petition of the Catholicos-Patriarch during the war, Bishop Ephraim (Sidamonidze) , Archpriest John Lozovsky, Protodeacon Amvrosy Ahobadze were released from the camps; 23 churches were opened.

Already on November 7, 1942, the Izvestia newspaper published a commemorative greeting to Stalin signed by Catholicos-Patriarch Callistrat ^[5] (telegram of the locum tenens of the Moscow Patriarchal Throne, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), appeared three days later, on November 10). The election of Metropolitan Sergius as patriarch gave the catholicos a reason to send a congratulatory telegram on September 14, 1943 expressing hope for the streamlining of relations between the Churches. The restoration of communion was followed on October 31 of the same year, marked by the co-service of the Catholicos-Patriarch with the Archbishop of Stavropol Anthony (Romanovsky) in the Cathedral of Zion in Tbilisi. On November 10, 1943, the Holy Synod, after hearing the report of Anthony of Stavropol, stated: "prayer and eucharistic communion between the two autocephalous Sister churches, the Russian and Georgian, to our common joy, restored." By the same decision, Russian parishes throughout the territory of the Georgian SSR were handed over to the subordination of the Georgian Orthodox Church, giving them the right to “preserve in their liturgical and parish practice those orders and customs that they inherited from the Russian Church,” in addition, the Synod determined to “ask His Holiness the Patriarch Catholicos accepts for its permission church affairs and Orthodox Russian parishes located in Armenia, which, although they live outside the Georgian SSR, but in terms of distance and other similar external reasons find it difficult to turn to the subject Russian church authority " ^[6] .

During the war years, the Georgian Church collected donations for the needs of the front, for which the Catholicos-Patriarch repeatedly received telegrams of thanks from Joseph Stalin . On February 2, 1943, the Izvestia newspaper published a message addressed to Stalin by the Catholicos-Patriarch Callistrat that "believers of the Georgian Catholicosate contribute 85,000 rubles to the State Bank for the needs of the Red Army" and Stalin's short answer. On March 8, 1944, the "request" of the Catholicos-Patriarch Callistratus was published in Izvestia to "accept a small offering of 150,000 rubles for holiday gifts to the heroes of the homeland defenders" with a brief response from Stalin.

On March 28, 1945, he headed the Church Council of the Georgian Orthodox Church, which adopted the new "Statute on the Administration of the Georgian Orthodox Church."

Participant of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church held from January 31 to February 2, 1945.

Participant of the celebrations of the 500th anniversary of the autocephaly of the Russian Orthodox Church held in July 1948 and the meeting of the heads of the local Orthodox Churches in Moscow . As the oldest of all those present, he sat invariably at the right hand of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy I , in a black cassock and a black doll with a diamond cross ^[7] .

On August 5, 1950, he participated in a trilateral meeting in Tbilisi with Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy I and Catholicos of All Armenians Gevorg VI .

July 23, 1951 was a member of the meeting of the primates of the five autocephalous Orthodox Churches in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra .

He died on February 3, 1952 in Tbilisi . A delegation of the Russian Orthodox Church was present at his burial at the Tbilisi Zion Cathedral. Buried in the Zion Cathedral.

A street in Tbilisi is named after Kalistrat Tsintsadze ^[8] .

• Autocephaly of the Georgian Church (Historical sketch of the 4th — 11th centuries). Tiflis, 1905
• Historical background on the issue of autocephality of the Georgian Church: Answer to G. V. Samuilov. Tiflis, 1906.
• Telegram [To the Patriarchal Locum Tenor, His Grace, Alexy, Metropolitan of Leningrad and Novgorod] // Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. M., 1944. № 7. p.6.
• To the peoples of the whole world // Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. M., 1945. No. 2. p. 1 (with Patriarch Christopher II of Alexandria, Patriarch Alexander III of Antioch, Patriarch Alexy I of Moscow, Metropolitan Herman Fyatri, Archbishop of Sebaste Athenagorus, Metropolitan Joseph of Scoplian, Bishop of Arzheshim, Bishop of Sebastia
• Greeting telegram to His Holiness Patriarch Alexy on the day of the New Year and on the feast of the Nativity of Christ // Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. M., 1947. № 1. p. 9.
• Telegram to His Holiness Patriarch Alexy [greetings on the 800th anniversary of the predatorial city of Moscow] // Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. M., 1947. № 10. p. 7.
• Speech at a ceremonial meeting on July 8, 1948 in the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, in Sokolniki, Moscow // Moscow Patriarchate Journal. M., 1948. № 8. p.9-10.
• Word for Holy Pascha, said at the Sioni Cathedral in Tbilisi on April 24, 1949 // The Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. M., 1949. № 5. p. 34-35.
• Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin [congratulation on the 70th anniversary] // Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. M., 1950. № 1. p.5.
• Response telegram to His Holiness Patriarch Alexy [thanks for congratulations on the day of memory of Equal-to-the-Apostles Nina] // Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. M., 1950. № 3. p. 6.
• Response to the Appeal of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy // Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. M., 1950. № 7. p.12.
• Appeal of the Primates of the Russian, Georgian and Armenian Churches to Christians of the whole world [about the struggle for peace] // Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. M., 1950. № 8. p. 5-7. (with Patriarch Alexei of Moscow and Alexy I, Supreme Patriarch-Catholicos of All Armenians George VI)
• Appeal to Christians around the world // Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. M., 1951. № 8. p. 3-5. (with Patriarch Alexander of Antioch, Patriarch Alexy of Moscow, Patriarch Romanian Justinian, Metropolitan Kirill of Plovdiv)
• Speech at the Georgian Republican Peace Conference in Tbilisi on September 19, 1951 // The Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. M., 1951. № 11. p. 26-27.
• Speech at the Third All-Union Conference of Peace Supporters // Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. M., 1951. No. 12. p. 18-19.

• სრულიად საქართველოს კათოლიკოს-პატრიარქი უწმიდესი და უნეტარესი კალისტრატე (1932—1952 ი)
• S. Vardosanidze, N.T.-M. CALLISTRAT // Orthodox encyclopedia . - M .: Church-Scientific Center "Orthodox Encyclopedia" , 2012. - T. XXIX. - p. 558-563. - 752 s. - 39 000 copies - ISBN 978-5-89572-025-7 .