Holy Trinity Cathedral
Tbilisi, Georgia
March 21, 2026
Your Holiness,
Your Beatitudes,
Your Eminence Metropolitan Shio and members of the Holy Synod
Your Eminences and Your Graces,
Your Excellencies, Mr. President and Mr. Prime Minister
Venerable clergy, monastics, and faithful of the Church of Georgia,
Distinguished guest,
His Holiness Patriarch Ilia once explained how one of his hymns came to be written. He said: “There were days, months and years when the church was in a very difficult situation. I could not find the way anymore — and at that time these words and this hymn came from the heart: I am tired, I am tired, come to me Lord.”
დავიღალე, დავიღალე, მოდი ჩემთან, უფალო
[transliteration: “Davighale, davighale, modi chemtan, upalo”]
Those words, which we heard at this morning’s liturgy, surprise us, coming from a man of such strength. But they are precisely the words that reveal his greatness. They are the words of a true father.
When we hear the Parable of the Prodigal Son, we naturally think of ourselves — wandering and lost, but perhaps coming to our senses and turning toward home. But today, standing here in the midst of your great grief, I find myself thinking not about the son, but about the father.
The father in that parable is mostly silent. He does not lecture or demand. But while his son is still “a great way off,” the father sees him — which means he has been watching and waiting, long before the son turned toward home. And when the moment comes, the father runs to meet his son.
Patriarch Ilia bore the weight of a father’s watching and waiting for nearly half a century. In moments of exhaustion and darkness, he did not reach for earthly power. He reached for God. “I am tired, I am tired, come to me, come to my side, Lord.” This is the prayer of a true pastor — one who has given everything and knows that what remains must come from beyond himself.
The thousands filling the streets of Tbilisi these past days have recognized in their Patriarch this image of fatherly love. They are not only mourning a great leader. They are mourning one whose great leadership remains precisely because he was a father.
To the Georgian faithful I say: the father in the Parable does not disappear at the end of the story. The One to Whom your Patriarch cried out — come to me, come to my side — is the same One who received him. And He is the same One who holds you now, even if you are tired, even in your sorrow.
May the Christ-like love and humility of your patriarch continue to shine as a beacon of our heavenly Father’s abundant and abiding love and may his memory be eternal.
მარადიულ იყოს მისი ხსენება.
[Transliteration: “Maradiul ikos khseneba misi”].