Georgia’s Foreign Minister visits Lithuania

Georgia and Lithuania are intensifying their relations, and Georgian Foreign Minister’s visit to Vilnius will enhance this.

Minister Mikheil Janelidze is set to embark on two-day official visit to Lithuania today.

Janelidze will hold meetings with Lithuania’s Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius, Speaker of the Seimas Loreta Grauziniene, Deputy Speaker of the Seimas Gediminas Kirkilas and Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius.

Georgia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement, talking points of the meetings would include bilateral relations between the countries and Georgia’s integration with European and Euro-Atlantic structures.

While in capital Vilnius the Georgian Minister will attend a meeting of the Georgian-Lithuanian Commission for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration, after which the Final Protocol of the Commission will be signed.

Janelidze will also visit Vilnius University and deliver a speech on "Georgia's European Way”.

In the framework of the visit, the Georgian official will pay tribute to the memory of those who died for Lithuania’s independence by laying a wreath at the Fallen Heroes Memorial and at the grave of Datiko Machavariani, an officer of the First Republic of Georgia who emigrated to Lithuania.

Janelidze will also visit Pazaislis Monastery near the city of Kaunas, where his Lithuanian counterpart will present copies of the documents from the personal funds of Kirion II preserved at the National Archives of Georgia.

Kyrion II was a Georgian religious figure and historian who served as the first Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia after the restoration of independence (autocephaly) of the Georgian Orthodox Church from the Russian Orthodox Church in 1917 until his assassination in 1918.

He was an active proponent of the Georgian autocephalist movement, calling for the restoration of the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Georgia abolished by Imperial Russia in 1811. For this reason, he was removed from Georgia to Kamenets-Podolsk (now Kamianets-Podilskyi, Ukraine) and later to Kovno (now Kaunas, Lithuania).