Easter service outside the Kashveti church, April 19, 2025; Photo: Guram Muradov/Civil.ge
Georgian protesters gathered on Tbilisi’s Rustaveli Avenue to celebrate Easter together. Activists and members of the Orthodox community lit candles, sang Easter songs, and prayed together during the holiday service in front of the Kashveti Church, opposite the parliament building, the epicenter of the current protests.
Easter is one of the most important and widely observed religious holidays in Georgia, when the streets of the capital are usually less congested as many head to the countryside to spend the long weekend with their extended families. It is also the second major religious holiday, after Christmas, whose celebration has become part of the ongoing non-stop protests.
Earlier in the evening, protesters and families of political prisoners marched to the Heroes’ Memorial to repeat the protest oath sworn by young activists exactly one year ago, which was read by Zviad Tsetskhladze- a student and one of the leaders of last spring’s anti Foreign Agents’ law and post-2024 election pro-European rallies, who remains in prison after being arrested during the December protests.
Easter service outside the Kashveti church, April 19, 2025; Photo: Guram Muradov/Civil.geEaster service outside the Kashveti church, April 19, 2025; Photo: Guram Muradov/Civil.geEaster service outside the Kashveti church, April 19, 2025; Photo: Guram Muradov/Civil.geProtest rally in Tbilisi on Easter Eve, April 19, 2025; Photo: Guram Muradov/Civil.geParents of imprisoned young activist Zviad Tsetskhladze at a protest rally on Easter Eve, April 19, 2025; Photo: Guram Muradov/Civil.geProtest rally in Tbilisi on Easter Eve, April 19, 2025; Photo: Guram Muradov/Civil.geProtest rally in Tbilisi on Easter Eve, April 19, 2025; Photo: Guram Muradov/Civil.geEaster service outside the Kashveti church, April 19, 2025; Photo: Guram Muradov/Civil.geProtest rally in Tbilisi on Easter Eve, April 19, 2025; Photo: Guram Muradov/Civil.gePresident Salome Zurabishvili on Rustaveli Avenue, at an Easter Eve protest rally; April 19, 2025; Photo: Guram Muradov/Civil.geProtesters wave a large Georgian flag at a protest rally on the Easter eve; April 19, 2025; Photo: Guram Muradov/Civil.geProtest rally in Tbilisi on the Easter eve, April 19, 2025; Photo: Guram Muradov/Civil.ge