Georgia's New Patriarch Leads Family Sanctity Day Marches, Calls for Anti-Gender Laws
By Messenger Staff
Monday, May 18, 2026
Large crowds and Georgian Dream party officials joined marches across Georgia on May 17 as the Georgian Orthodox Church celebrated the Day of Family Sanctity and Respect for Parents, with newly enthroned Patriarch Shio III leading the festivities and delivering a speech warning against abortion, "harmful gender ideologies," and what he described as a demographic threat to Georgians.
Shio III, enthroned less than a week ago following the death of Patriarch Ilia II in March, called on the faithful to join the processions and led the liturgical service at Tbilisi's Holy Trinity Cathedral. Georgian Dream officials, including Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili, and GD-elected President Mikheil Kavelashvili, attended and addressed crowds. Tsotne Ivanishvili, the youngest son of Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili, also took part in the Tbilisi procession.
In his address to the crowd, Shio III covered several contentious topics. On demographics, he warned that Georgia faces a real danger of being outnumbered in its own country. "If we do not work to strengthen, preserve, and save the family, we face a real danger that other people will establish themselves alongside us in our beautiful, paradise-like country, those who love children, who do not get rid of their children, and who protect their religion, and therefore multiply successfully," he said. "If we continue like this, the danger is real that they will outnumber Georgians."
The Patriarch also called for legislation protecting families and people "from harmful gender theories and ideologies," saying that "rather than rejecting such legislation, as some call on us to do, we should instead strengthen and reinforce this direction of protecting and preserving the family."
On abortion, Shio III was unequivocal. "If a grave sin, such as, for example, abortion, is present within a family, then, of course, a family cannot build any kind of happiness on such a foundation, and such a family is doomed," he said.
Georgian Dream officials used their addresses to tie the day's themes to national identity and religion. "With the Lord's protection and the Patriarch's spiritual guidance, we will firmly defend Christianity, Orthodoxy, and all those values that constitute the essence and substance of the Georgian nation," Kobakhidze said. President Kavelashvili said that, like their ancestors, "today we too firmly believe that a morally firm family is the foundation of a strong state."
Family Sanctity Day was introduced in 2014 on the initiative of the late Patriarch Ilia II, a year after the May 17, 2013, attacks on a small anti-homophobia rally in Tbilisi led by Orthodox clergy. The designation of May 17 for the holiday is widely seen as a deliberate attempt to counter and overshadow the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia. Georgian Dream designated the day a public holiday as part of its 2024 anti-LGBT legislation, which also effectively restricted gatherings associated with queer rights advocacy.
No public queer events were held this year to mark IDAHOBIT, as has been the case in recent years following repeated anti-queer violence and the passage of the 2024 legislation. Georgian queer organizations nonetheless issued statements.
Tbilisi Pride drew a direct line from the 2013 attacks to the present. "The attack on the queer community on May 17, 2013, is a clear example that violence and oppression have always been the political will of the authorities. It was on our bodies that the authoritarianism was trained, which is now visible to the whole society," the group said.
Despite what it described as intensifying "hatred, censorship, persecution" under Georgian Dream in recent years, the group said members of the LGBTQI+ community "refuse to fall into despair." "We hold on to one another. Sometimes survival itself is a form of resistance. Our resistance is not only a struggle for rights-it is also love, joy, and the desire for freedom," Tbilisi Pride said.
