The new patriarch began a course of reforms, enabling the Georgian Orthodox Church, once suppressed by the Soviet ideology, to largely regain its former influence and prestige by the late 1980s.
Novi patrijarh je započeo reforme, čime je Gruzijskoj pravoslavnoj crkvi, jednom potisnute od strane sovjetske ideologije, uglavnom htio povratiti svoj nekadašnji utjecaj i ugled.