The Orthodox Church in Georgia

(One) - High in the Caucasus Mountains, at the eastern end of the Black Sea, rests Georgia. Poised between the Arabic, Persian and Syriac cultures of Asia and the Greco-Roman world of Europe, Georgians have fashioned a unique civilization, integrating with their own many of the beliefs, customs, ideas and principles of these seemingly disparate societies.

Christianity — which became the state religion in the eastern Georgian kingdom of Kartli by the fourth century — is as much responsible for the creation and survival of this distinctive polity as language or tradition.

Strategically situated on the crossroads of East and West, North and South, tiny Georgia has repeatedly overcome far superior foes — Romans, Persians, Arabs, Mongols, Ottomans and Russians. Yet the Orthodox Church of Georgia, often described as the buttress of the nation, remains a formidable force in the lives of the country’s 4.7 million people, 80 percent of whom belong to the church...

Complete article here (and a wonderful slideshow here).