“Even during these days, the people involved in the protests did not stop insulting the Church, belittling the Patriarch, and going against Georgian values. We saw a spiritually elevated Georgian nation, and we saw a spiritually degraded group engaged in protest,” said the Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia, Shalva Papuashvili, speaking to journalists.

According to him, NGOs funded from abroad have been attacking the Church for years and “could not even offer a single word of condolence.”

Papuashvili stated that these days demonstrated how “millions spent over the years from abroad and various brainwashing activities have gone to waste, and nothing can overcome the spiritual strength that the Patriarch created in Georgia.”

“In recent days, we saw the true face of those involved in the protests. We saw that even in these days they did not stop insulting the Church, diminishing the Patriarch, and opposing Georgian values. We saw a spiritually elevated Georgian nation and a spiritually degraded protest group. This was the real picture and the contrast between the hundreds of thousands of Georgians who stood in line for hours to express their grief and pay tribute to our Patriarch, and the few dozen or hundred protesters who turned pro-Europeanism into anti-Georgianism. This is what we truly witnessed. These days confirmed that there is no ‘pro’ orientation other than being pro-Georgian. Any other orientation - whether pro-European, pro-Western, pro-Russian, or otherwise - apart from Georgian, is anti-Georgian. This was shown by the group of people involved in the protests.

Do not think that this is only about certain individuals or NGOs. All of this is directed from abroad. This is anti-Georgian propaganda that has been funded and cultivated for years from outside, ordered and managed from abroad. We see its results, but ultimately we also see its failure. We saw a few hundred so-called protesters against millions of Georgians. This one day showed us that the millions spent from abroad over the years, along with various brainwashing activities, have gone to waste, and nothing can overcome the spiritual strength that the Patriarch created in Georgia,” Papuashvili said.