“This is a day when words become difficult. What we feel goes beyond ordinary pain, and what we experience goes beyond ordinary mourning. These days we stand in silence filled with prayer. Our Holy Patriarch, His Holiness and Beatitude Ilia II, has appeared before the Lord through his work and his deeds. His legacy is us—his nation, his flock, his spiritual children. The Lord sent him as a single man, and he returns to the Creator together with his entire nation—so visibly, so united, so whole, as has been revealed in these great days,” said the Speaker of Parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, during the funeral ceremony of His Holiness and Beatitude Ilia II at the Holy Trinity Patriarchal Cathedral.

As Papuashvili noted, we are the generation of the Patriarch and witnesses to a unique phenomenon in which an entire nation is spiritually connected through one person.

“The present abundance, form, and character of our two-thousand-year-old Church were created by him. His Holiness and Beatitude became the strong binding force of our nation and Church, connecting our past with the present, and the present with the future during a time of godlessness and nihilism. And indeed, we witnessed a miracle of God—a Georgian Church risen from the ashes, which he alone, with his own hands, shaped anew. He was able to do this because he knew what matters most,” the Speaker of Parliament said.

According to Shalva Papuashvili, in today’s world many values compete for primacy—freedom, equality, solidarity, justice.

“His Holiness and Beatitude would give each of them their proper place, but he taught us the most important truth: freedom, equality, and all other values lose their meaning if they are not founded on the highest value—love. We had a Patriarch of love. A tireless preacher of it. Through his life, he became an example of how one can love everyone—family and strangers, friends and enemies, the righteous and the sinful,” he noted.

In Papuashvili’s assessment, the Patriarch accomplished the impossible: as a Christian, he fulfilled Christ’s law; as a monk, he kept his vow; and as a Patriarch, he carried the heaviest cross of his nation.

“He achieved this and thus stood before the Lord—blameless and full of grace. This is who we are—his generation, those who lived alongside him, saw him, felt his grace, and bear witness to his greatness. But his story does not end here. After us, his generation will continue the path—his godchildren, our children, who carry his name, his blessing, and his grace. In this way, he built a bridge across time and united our nation. ‘Great are You, O Lord, and wondrous are Your works.’ May the memory of our Patriarch be eternal! May his prayers and intercession protect all of Georgia!” the Speaker of Parliament said.