the attack took place at around 16:00, as armed militants entered the parish of St Louis de Montfort in Minhoene Photo: ACN

The new Patriarch of Georgia and global Orthodoxy

The Synod has elected the three candidates to succeed Ilia II, who had led the Georgian Church since 1977. The candidate with the most votes was the 57-year-old Metropolitan Shio, who had in fact already served as regent alongside the elderly patriarch for ten years. But this transition is extremely delicate, because in a deeply polarised country and against the backdrop of the clash between Moscow and Constantinople, the Georgian Orthodox Church is not merely choosing a person or a development programme for its future.