TBILISI -- A depiction of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin inside Tbilisi's main cathedral has reignited debate in Georgia over apparent attempts to recast one of history's most ruthless oppressors of religion as sympathetic to the Orthodox Church.
On January 6, photos emerged of an icon in a corner of Tbilisi's Holy Trinity Cathedral that features Stalin. The image of the ethnic Georgian dictator is within a larger illustration of St. Matrona of Moscow, a mystic and saint of the Russian Orthodox Church who died in 1952. Stalin is shown standing in front of Matrona in one of several scenes from the life of the blind ascetic.
Ilia Chigladze, a Georgian archpriest, wrote on Facebook that the appearance of the Soviet dictator inside Tbilisi's main cathedral "promotes the spread of bitter lies within the Georgian church that the bloody, godless tyrant Stalin was a deeply faithful Orthodox Christian who listened to the saints and acted on their instructions."
A priest from Trinity Cathedral, Archimandrite Iovane Mchedlishvili, told journalists that the icon on which Stalin is shown had been on display in the cathedral "for several months," adding that "no one has paid attention to it until now."
The artwork was donated to the cathedral by leaders of the Alliance of Patriots of Georgia, a right-wing populist party that says the image has been misinterpreted. Davit Tarkhan-Mouravi, a leader of the political party, compared it to icons in which saints are pictured with their persecutors.
"Even [Roman Emperor and persecutor of Christians] Diocletian is depicted on the icon of St. George," he said. "So what should we do? Remove the icons of St. George?"
The depiction of Stalin alongside St. Matrona of Moscow apparently refers to a widely disputed claim that Stalin met with the mystic following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union and took her counsel. The only apparent source for the story of Stalin's secret "turn toward God" is a biography of Matrona.
Despite massive campaigns of political killings and the destruction of churches during Stalin's rule from 1924 until his death in 1953, he is still viewed with pride by many Georgians. Several public monuments to the communist dictator remain standing across the country.
But linking one of history's most notorious oppressors of religion to Orthodox Christianity has generally proved a step too far in both Georgia and Russia, where controversies have also broken out in recent years over the appearance of Stalin's image inside churches.
In 2017, a sketch was hung inside Kutaisi's Bagrati Cathedral, in central Georgia, portraying Stalin respectfully addressing church leaders. Shortly after news of that revisionist image was made public, it was removed from the cathedral.
Dean Andria Jagmaidze, the head of public relations of the Patriarchate, responded to a question from RFE/RL’s Georgian Service about whether the icon featuring Stalin currently on display in Tbilisi's cathedral would remain in place, by asking: "Why did they break such a story on Christmas Eve anyway?"
He answered with his own question: "Why did they save this topic for today? What did they achieve? People were robbed of their joy, and this is a greater evil than the depiction of Stalin on the icon."
