Tbilisi: The police in Georgia have arrested a priest over a suspected poisoning plot targeting the head of the Orthodox Church in the former Soviet Republic.
The police on February 13 announced that they detained Father Giorgi Mamaladze with sodium cyanide three days earlier when he was boarding a plane to Berlin, where Patriarch Ilia II awaited a gallbladder operation.
Irakli Shotadze, chief prosecutor in the former Soviet republic, told reporters that Father Mamaladze was in pre-trial detention on “suspicion of plotting to murder a high-ranking Church official.”
The statement did not specify the target of the plot but the prime minister responded by ordering increased security for 83-year-old Ilia, agencies reported.
Father Mamaladze “had systematic contacts” with the patriarch, prosecutors said.
Shotadze said the arrest was made after prosecutors received a tip from a man who reported that he had been contacted by a priest looking to buy cyanide. Police also found weapons at Mamaladze’s home.
He refused to name the senior cleric that the priest was suspected of having targeted.
Meanwhile Patriarch Ilia successfully underwent the gallbladder operation on February 13, Georgian media reported. The patriarch has led the Church since 1977. He wields significant influence on Georgia’s social and political life. He oversaw a major revival of the Church after Georgia regained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
More than 80 percent of Georgia’s 4.5 million people follow the conservative Georgian Orthodox Church. It is among distinct Eastern Orthodox Churches, which also include the Greek and Russian Churches.
The Church was severely repressed during the Soviet era and Tsarist Russia’s occupation of Georgia.