Ilia II, patriarch who led Georgian Church out of the Soviet Union, dies at 93

A person holds a phone with an image of Georgia's Orthodox Patriarch Ilia II outside the hospital where he was admitted, in Tbilisi, Georgia, March 17, 2026. REUTERS/Irakli Gedenidze

(Corrects to remove reference to Eduard Shevardnadze being the first post-Soviet ⁠president of Georgia in paragraph 9 of March 17 story)

TBILISI, March 17 (Reuters) - The spiritual leader of the Georgian Orthodox Church for just shy of half a century, ⁠Ilia II oversaw its transformation from an institution repressed under the Soviet Union into the most powerful non-state body in one of the world's oldest Christian countries.