"Thank you for taking on the greatest mission even after your repose and once again enabling us to stand together, pray together, live together, and support one another! — Farewell, Your Holiness!" — this is what former Defense Minister Tinatin Khidasheli writes on social media.

Khidasheli expresses hope that "perhaps the grandeur of unity experienced in these days will suppress that immense hatred, intolerance, and disgust that threatens to engulf us."

"Farewell, Your Holiness! Thank you for taking on the greatest mission even after your repose and once again enabling us to stand together, pray together, live together, and support one another! Perhaps, starting tomorrow, the grandeur of unity we have experienced in these days will suppress that immense hatred, intolerance, and disgust that threatens to engulf us," — Khidasheli writes on social media.

At the Holy Trinity Cathedral, the funeral service for the Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia, His Holiness and Beatitude Ilia II, is currently underway.

The service is being celebrated by the Archbishop of Constantinople – New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, together with the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne, Metropolitan Shio, and members of the Holy Synod of the Georgian Church.

At 15:00, the body of the Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, Ilia II, will be carried out from the Holy Trinity Patriarchal Cathedral in a funeral procession on foot toward the Sioni Patriarchal Cathedral.

For information: The Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, His Holiness and Beatitude Ilia II, passed away at the age of 93. National mourning has been declared in Georgia in connection with the death of Ilia II. The Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia, His Holiness and Beatitude Ilia II, will be buried today, March 22, at Sioni Cathedral.