About religiosity in Georgia

When you travel around in Georgia you will not notice that people are very religious. I would even say that Georgia is the most religious Christian country I have ever been. This is my personal experience and as it is subjective, allow me this subjective article:

Especially in Tbilisi I saw that there were several church services a day and the churches were full of people. Well, churches were built that people come there to celebrate their religion but to me the religiosity appeared quite "unreal", more than a hype than that people are really following the religion. I mean, the priests and monks drive big and expensive cars while they should be role models how to live in modesty. All, and I mean all bus and taxi drivers I war driving with had crosses and icons besides or at the inner mirror in their cars and cross themselves while driving. Nevertheless many drive crazy (especially the marshrutka drivers) and endanger others.
Many people in the buses cross themselves whenever the bus passes a church or one of the "street icons". There are new icons all over the country on the streets like traffic signs. But it is in most cases more important to know the right amount of crossing oneself than to follow the path of altruism. A few times people explained me when one should cross oneself 5 or more times and that 4 times crossing is bad etc. Of course I asked them what else they do in favor of the religion ;-) and then they told me proudly that they go to confession frequently and that confession makes life easy: One can life as one likes to knowing that this is not "correct" but thanks to confession the incorrectness is forgiven. That reminded be a bit of the catholicism in southern Europe but there the people are much more relaxed regarding to religious signs and actions.

One of the "street icons" in Borjomi.

This is an ancient church in the ethnographic museum. It was important for the employees of the museum that I lift off my hat because it is still a sacred place and it is not allowed to wear hats in a church as a man (in contrary to woman that must cover their hair). That day it was raining at 5 °C but OK.

Some are very proud to support the church with money because the church is for them what makes their country. Looking into Georgia's history this was true but I doubt that this applies also for today's Georgia. I had problems to understand what the current church leaders do for the country. I mean the current Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II. is in charge since 1977. So he was already the leader in Soviet times. Did he play a role in overcoming the repressive Soviet system in the early 1990's? Nobody could answer me that question. Moreover he decided to build the huge Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi in a time where most of the Georgians had electricity only a few hours a day. The cathedral cost a lot of money which could have been invested in other projects. THE main problem of Georgia for decades where the corruption. Did the church anything against this?
Now the Georgian Orthodox Church is the largest land owner in Georgia and use it to make profits and to run several companies. Is it the task of a church to make profits or to help the people forming the church?

However, obviously the religiosity helps many people and this is important. If they would become unsatisfied with their church one day they can change it. For now the church has such an influence that couples decides to get more children because the patriarch baptizes every third (or further) children of a family. The result are mass-baptisms.