On October 1, 2026, Metropolitan Anthony of Volokolamsk, Chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate's Department for External Church Relations, who is on a visit to Georgia, visited holy sites in the east of the country.
Accompanied by hierarchs of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Andrey of Gori and Athena and Metropolitan Nikolai of Akhalkalaki, Kumurdo and Kars, as well as Archpriest Nikolai Balashov, adviser to the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Archpriest Igor Yakimchuk, Deputy Chairman of the DECR, Archpriest Vladimir Alexandrov, cleric of the Russian Orthodox Church in Tbilisi, and Priest Nikolai Vasin, Secretary to the DECR Chairman, Metropolitan Anthony visited the monastery. St. David of Gareja. This monastery, founded in the sixth century, played a crucial role in the spread of monasticism in the land of Iberia. Pilgrims from the Russian Orthodox Church prayed at the tombs of Saints David and Dodo, and worshiped the relics of the Holy Martyrs of the Fathers of Gareji, who suffered during the invasion of the Persian Shah Abbas I in the 17th century.
Then the DECR chairman and his companions visited the Monastery of the Nativity of the Virgin in Kachreti, where they were warmly welcomed by the monastery's rector, Archimandrite Anthony (Kandelaki).
The final point of the pilgrimage program was the Bodbe Convent in honor of Equal-to-the-Apostles Nina, the enlightener of Iberia. Metropolitan Anthony celebrated a prayer service at the tomb of the saint in the south aisle of the St. George Cathedral church of the monastery. Abbess Theodora (Makhviladze), abbess of the monastery, showed the guests the newly built monastic temples in honor of Equal-to-the-Apostles Nina, St. Gabriel of Samtavria and Reverend Confessor Tamari (Mardzhanova), told about the history of the monastery and its modern life.