Sir, - Regarding the correspondence about Stalin, (May 31st), the Georgian Church is autocephalous but is in communion with the Russian Orthodox Church. The head of the church is called the Catholicos, and perhaps that is where the confusion lies.
Georgia was Christian from very early times, following the conversion by St Nino, and Christianity was the state religion in Eastern Georgia about 330 AD, many centuries before Russia became Christian. Tbilisi's Art Museum now occupies the building, once used as a theological seminary, where Stalin studied between 1894 and 1898, and in Soviet times there was a plaque on the wall outside commemorating that event.
After the annexation of Georgia by Russia in 1801, the autocephaly of the Georgian Church was abolished and it was restored briefly in an attempt at an independent state between 1917 and 1920. Later it was restored by the Moscow Patriarchate at Stalin's request in 1943. - Yours, etc.,
Hilary Richardson, Wellington Road, Dublin 4.