Pope Francis will visit the Svetitskhoveli Cathedral in Mtskheta and celebrate Mass at a stadium in Tbilisi during his visit to Georgia on September 30-October 1, the Holly See press office said on Monday.
On the first day of his visit the Pope will meet President Giorgi Margvelashvili in the presidential palace in Tbilisi and then head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Ilia II on September 30.
On the same day Pope Frances is also scheduled to meet the Assyrian-Chaldean community at the Catholic Chaldean Church.
On October 1 he will celebrate Mass at the Mikheil Meskhi Stadium in Tbilisi, which has the capacity of over 25,000.
He will also visit the Roman Catholic cathedral in Tbilisi and then meet charity workers at the Assistance Centre of the Camillian Order.
Pope Francis will then travel to Mtskheta, one of Georgia’s oldest towns, to visit the 11th century Svetitskhoveli Cathedral.
Pope Francis, who visited Armenia last month, will leave Tbilisi and head to Azerbaijan in the morning of October 2.
It will be the second time a pope visits Georgia.
Pope John Paul II visited Georgia in November 1999; he celebrated Mass at the Sports Palace in Tbilisi.
In September, 2014 then Secretary for Relations with States of the Holy See Archbishop Dominique Mamberti visited Tbilisi – the first visit of Vatican’s foreign minister to Georgia in eleven years.
Before that the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States, the post which at the time was held by Jean-Louis Tauran, visited Tbilisi in September, 2003 to sign an interstate agreement giving the Catholic Church in Georgia legal status. But in a last-minute decision, yielding to pressure from the Georgian Orthodox Church, the Georgian authorities made U-turn and refused to sign the agreement. In 2011, despite protests from the Georgian Orthodox Church, the Georgian authorities adopted law allowing religious minority groups to be registered as legal entities under public law, which, among others, was also used by several branches of the Roman Catholic Church in Georgia. Adoption of the legislation was welcomed by the Vatican.
