SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
ILIA STATE UNIVERSITY

Direction:Religious Studies
Position:Professor





iGraduated from Faculty of Georgian Philology at Ivane Javakhishvili State University where she did the post-graduate studies and was awarded degree of candidate of humanities for thesis on Symbolics of the Early Georgian Hagiography. Worked as researcher at Shota Rustaveli Institute of Georgian Literature, taught Georgian language and literature at Gymnasium. Continued further studies at St. Vladmir’s Seminary (New York, USA), at Anglican School (Rippon College Cuddeston, England, UK), was enrolled as a doctoral student of Eastern Christian Studies at the University of Oxford, was awarded D.Phil for thesis on Place/Space in Writings of Maximus the Confessor. Worked as an excutive for Orthodox theology at secretariat of the Faith and Order Commission (World Council of Churches, Geneva, Switzerland), was Ambassador of Georgia to the Holy See, Invited Researcher at Theology Faculty of St. Micahel’s College at Toronto University (Canada) and Cyrus Vance Professor in International Studies at Mount Holyoke College (MA, USA). Associate professor at Ilia State University from November 2020.

Scientific interests / research interests

Ecclesiology, Christian Dialogue, Religious Naitonalism, History of the Orthodox Church of Georgia

 Books

  • Editor: Roma e I Georgiani, Le relazioni diplomatiche tra la Georgia e la Santa Sede, 1992-2017, (Roma: Cultura, Stiudium, 109, 2017
  • Sources of Authority: The Early Church, Volume 1&2, edited by Tamara Grdzelidze (Geneva: WCC Publications, 2014)
  • Georgian Monks on Mount Athos: Two Eleventh Century Lives of the Hegoumenoi of Iviron, Translation, notes and introduction by Tamara Grdzelidze (London: Bennet&Bloom, 2009)
  • Limits of the Church: Orthodox Engagement with Ecumenism (Tbilisi: Kvirioni, 2000)

Current Courses

Course Catalog

Sustainable Development at the intersection of Political and Religious (ENG); Cristian Dialogue and church relations : difference and distinction; Comparative Christian theology in the west and east
Introduction to Christian Civilization; Human Rights and Christian Tradition(s) (ENG); Religious Nationalism and Democratic Nation-Building in ex-Soviet States (Russia, Ukraine, Georgia) (ENG)

Faith and Politics in Films, Gender and Orthodoxy, Ecclesiology of Maximus the Confessor, Christin Unity, Introduction to Christian Hermeneutics, Christian Ecclesiology, Monasticism in Eastern Christianity, On War and Conflict in the Orthodox Church, Human Rights and Orthodoxy