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On Wednesday, His Holiness and Beatitude Ilya Ghudushauri-Shiolashvili Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia served at Holy Trinity Cathedral on the feastday of the Epiphany, after which, he greeted and blessed the people. In Georgia, the celebrations of the Baptism of Our Lord started the night before in Batumi on the Black Sea coast, where many believers took a traditional dip in the sea. After the service, His Holiness turned to the believers and called them to thank God both for their trials and for their blessings. “I’m confident that God will save Georgia and shall withdraw any invisible and visible threat from her”, he said. Tonight, he baptised 560 children (in all, Vladyki Ilya has baptised some 7,000 children). On 19 January 2007, His Holiness made a vow… he’d baptise the third and every subsequent child in a family. Many experts believe that this initiative was one of the causes that helped to improve the demographic indicators in the country over the past two years. In recent years, the population growth was close to 20,000 a year.
19 January 2011
Interfax-Religion
Voices from Russia 
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