Justice wrote:NotChrysostomYet wrote:Barbara, yes, there is a Georgian branch of Old Believers, and most of them are in communion with the Russian Old Believers. This is due to the fact that Georgia continued using the Old Rite all the way until the 19th century, when Russia invaded and realized that Georgia had the practices of the "Old Believer heretics".* They forced Georgia to disband the patriarchate, and they installed a Russian metropolitan who repeated the action of Patriarch Nikon in Russia by forcing Georgia to adopt the Nikonian Reforms. Russia also forced Georgia to stop using their language in the liturgy and use Church Slavonic instead. However, Georgia's chant style managed to survive.
So does the Georgian Old-Rite church have apostolic succession? As it doesn't sound like they lost their priests?
My understanding is that like the Old Believers in Russia, all the bishops went along with the Nikonian Reforms. (Well, one bishop in Russia did, but he was burned alive as a result of that). So after the reforms were implemented, the Georgian Old Believers received their Apostolic Succession from the priested Old Believers. However, no detailed information on this matter is available in English, so I could very well be wrong.
Edit: Yep, I just checked.