საქართველოს მართლმადიდებელი ეკლესიის საგარეო ურთიერთობებიXX საუკუნის 70-80-იან წლებში

The condition of religious institutions and believers in the Soviet Union appeared in the centre of attention of the world, even back then during the Soviet Empire. However, for
obvious reasons, researchers from USA and Western Europe, being beyond the “Iron Curtain”, had more chances to study freely this issue. As a result, a corresponding field was
formed in the Western scientific circles already a long time ago. As for the Soviet Union and the socialist camp, corresponding researches became available mainly since the 80s.
Obviously, Soviet censorship did not allow either religious figures or representatives of science to study the issue without bias, and even more - to publish disclosing works. As a
result, we have the situation that even 34 years after the collapse of the empire, many aspects of the issue require research in order to reconstruct the real historical picture.
The main goal of the present work is to study the foreign relations of Georgian Orthodox Church, which was part of the Soviet Union, in the 70s-80s of the 20th century; However,
due to the complex nature of the issue, we decided, initially to study the religious policy of the Soviet government (L. Brezhnev, I. Andropov, K. Chernenko and M. Gorbachev) of this period and its influence on Georgian Church. We have chosen two fields as the main reference point of the foreign relations of the Georgian Orthodox Church: a) the relations of Georgian Church with the Orthodox world, where we singled out the Orthodox Churches of Russia, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria and Jerusalem, which used to play an important role in the process of reintegration of Georgian Church into the Christian world and in international recognition of its autocephaly. b) The relations of Georgian Church with the Catholic and Protestant worlds, where we chose as the object of research its contacts with the Vatican and the leading body of the ecumenical movement - the World Council of Churches. Regarding the latter, it should be noted that the Council did not represent only Protestants and united both Orthodox and Catholics, and later, adherents of other religions, however, the basis, core and main trends of its activities were connected precisely with the Protestant West and, accordingly, it was one of the most important links that would have helped Georgian Church to approach Western circles.
The present thesis, based on Georgian, Western and Russian archival sources, memoirs, periodicals and scientific literature, analyzes the religious policy of the Soviet government in
the 70s-80s of the 20th century and its development trends; the attitude of the local government of Georgia towards religion and taken measures; the general condition of
Georgian Church and its foreign relations; struggle for recognition of historical rights and autocephaly and its results.