Orthodox weddings
The Georgian Orthodox wedding service
A Georgian wedding is jvrisckera, literally the writing of the cross, celebrated on the old calendar in a language related to nothing else in Christendom and sung in a three-voice polyphony that exists nowhere else.
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What is different here
The same rite, celebrated this way
The Georgian Apostolic Autocephalous Orthodox Church, with its patriarch in Tbilisi.
The rite is the Byzantine one and a visitor who has been to a Russian or Greek wedding will recognise every stage of it. Two things make a Georgian wedding sound entirely unlike either.
The first is the language. Georgian belongs to no family shared with Greek, Slavonic, Arabic or Romanian; it has its own alphabet, written since the fifth century, and a Slav or a Greek standing in a Georgian church understands nothing at all by cognate. The second is the singing. Georgian liturgical chant is three-voice polyphony, with the melody in the middle voice and two independent parts around it, and it is old enough and strange enough to Western ears that UNESCO listed it as intangible cultural heritage. A Georgian wedding does not sound like Byzantine chant and does not sound like Russian choral singing. It sounds like nothing else.
The Georgian Church is one of the oldest in Christendom — the kingdom of Kartli adopted Christianity in the fourth century through the preaching of St Nino — and the service carries that antiquity without drawing attention to it.
Mak’ari, the crown-holder
Georgian practice uses sponsors who hold the crowns above the couple in the Slavic manner. The godparent relationship is strong in Georgian families and frequently overlaps with the wedding sponsorship, so the person who holds the crown is often the person who will later stand at a baptism. In a diaspora setting the practical constraint bites harder than the custom: a Georgian couple in North America may have very few Orthodox Georgians within reach, and a sponsor from another Orthodox jurisdiction is entirely acceptable.
Metal crowns, held above the head
Closed crowns of the type used across the Slavic and Caucasian churches, held by the sponsors through the readings and the procession rather than worn. Where a Georgian couple is married in a Russian, Greek or OCA parish for lack of a Georgian one, the crowns will simply be that parish’s crowns, which is a small thing but one that families sometimes find worth noting in the photographs.
The language of the service
Georgian, in a script of its own. Outside Georgia the practical question is usually not how much Georgian the service will contain but whether there is a Georgian parish at all. Where there is, the service is in Georgian with whatever English the priest adds for guests; where there is not, Georgian families commonly attend and marry in Russian, Greek or OCA parishes, sometimes with a Georgian priest brought in for the day. Ask for the Epistle and Gospel in English if your congregation needs them.
The Julian calendar throughout
The Georgian Church keeps the old calendar, so the Nativity falls on the seventh of January by civil reckoning and every fixed feast sits thirteen days after its Western counterpart. The consequences for a wedding date are the same as in the Russian and Serbian churches: the Nativity Fast runs through the Western holiday season and closes it, and the Dormition Fast falls in the second half of August rather than the first. Pascha is on the Orthodox reckoning, as it is everywhere in Orthodoxy.
The calendar
When a wedding cannot be held
The four fasting seasons and the standalone fast days, reckoned on the Julian calendar. Georgian practice is generally strict about them.
Every list of closed dates is applied by a parish priest, and a bishop can dispense. Treat this as the shape of the year, not as your parish’s answer.
- Great Lent and Holy Week
- Closed throughout. In Georgia the Lenten fast is kept widely and publicly, and a family will not press for an exception.
- The Nativity Fast, to the sixth of January
- On the Julian reckoning this runs to the Western sixth of January, which means December and the New Year weekend are both unavailable.
- The Dormition Fast
- A fortnight ending at the Dormition, which on the old calendar falls on the twenty-eighth of August.
- The Apostles’ Fast
- Variable in length, ending at the feast of Saints Peter and Paul on the twelfth of July by civil reckoning.
- The eves of great feasts, and the weekly pattern
- Georgian parishes generally follow the Slavic avoidance of weddings on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Where a Georgian couple is marrying in a parish of another jurisdiction, the host parish’s practice applies.
Before the date
What has to be arranged first
For a couple outside Georgia, the first question is administrative rather than canonical: which parish and which bishop. Once that is settled the requirements are the standard Orthodox ones.
- Find the parish first
- Georgian parishes outside Georgia are few and widely scattered, and there are only a handful in North America. Many Georgian Orthodox Christians belong to a Russian, Greek or OCA parish. Settle where the wedding will be before anything else, because it determines the calendar, the language and the paperwork.
- Baptismal records
- From the parish of baptism in Georgia or elsewhere. The Patriarchate keeps records and they are obtainable, but a request from abroad takes time.
- Permission for a marriage to a baptised non-Orthodox Christian
- From the bishop of the diocese celebrating the marriage, on the usual terms. A marriage to someone unbaptised is not celebrated as a sacrament.
- An ecclesiastical divorce where there was a previous church marriage
- Through the relevant ecclesiastical authority. Where the first marriage was in Georgia and the second is in North America, expect this to be the long pole.
- The civil licence
- Signed by the officiating priest under the local state or provincial rules.
Around the service
Customs a guest will actually meet
None of these is part of the rite. They belong to the families, the diaspora and the reception, and they are what makes one Orthodox wedding feel unlike another.
The supra, and the tamada who runs it
A Georgian wedding celebration is a supra, a formal feast governed by a toastmaster, the tamada, who is appointed and whose authority over the evening is real. Toasts follow a sequence — to God, to peace, to the couple, to parents, to those who have died, to children not yet born — and each is a short speech rather than a raised glass. A guest may be called on. The right response is to stand up and say something true.
Alaverdi
The tamada hands the floor to a particular guest to continue a toast. Being given an alaverdi is an honour and declining it is not really available. It is also the mechanism by which an evening of forty toasts remains interesting.
Wine, and a very long history of it
Georgia has been making wine in clay qvevri for eight thousand years, and wine at a Georgian wedding is not an accessory. Both the toasting sequence and the pace of the meal assume it. Guests should also assume the evening is long.
Polyphonic singing at the table
The same three-voice tradition that carries the chant carries the table songs, sung by whoever can hold a part. A Georgian celebration where nobody sings would be considered a failure of hospitality.
The service itself
Read it moment by moment, with the prayers
Georgian Orthodox parishes celebrate the Betrothal and the Crowning in the order below. Every moment is set out in full on the main page, with the prayer said at that point printed underneath it.
The full service, with every prayerQuestions
Good to know
What does jvrisckera mean?
It is the Georgian word for a church wedding and it means, roughly, the writing or inscribing of the cross. Like the Greek stefanoma and the Russian venchanie, the Georgian name describes what the Church does rather than any promise the couple make — in this case the signing of the couple with the cross.
Does the Georgian Orthodox Church use the old calendar?
Yes, the Julian calendar, for all fixed feasts. The Nativity falls on the seventh of January by civil reckoning. That places the Nativity Fast across the whole Western holiday season and moves the Dormition Fast into the second half of August, both of which shape which wedding dates exist.
What does Georgian church singing sound like?
Three-voice polyphony, with the melody carried by the middle voice and two independent parts around it, in a tuning that sounds unfamiliar to Western ears. It is unrelated to Byzantine chant and unrelated to Russian choral singing, and UNESCO has listed it as intangible cultural heritage. It is the single most striking thing about a Georgian service for a first-time visitor.
Can we have a Georgian Orthodox wedding if there is no Georgian parish near us?
Yes. Georgian Orthodox Christians are in full communion with the other Eastern Orthodox churches, so a wedding may be celebrated in a Russian, Greek, Antiochian or OCA parish, and Georgian families do this routinely. Some arrange for a Georgian priest to come for the day, which is a conversation to have with both parishes early.
What is a tamada?
The appointed toastmaster of a Georgian feast. The tamada sets the order of toasts, decides who speaks, and controls the shape of the evening, and the role carries real authority rather than being a compere’s job. Toasts are short speeches on set themes and a guest may well be asked to give one.
Is the Georgian Church in communion with the Russian and Greek churches?
Yes. The Georgian Apostolic Autocephalous Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church in communion with the other Orthodox churches, and it is one of the oldest, with Christianity established in Kartli in the fourth century. A Georgian Orthodox Christian may be married in any canonical Orthodox parish.
Keep exploring
Related guides
- The Russian Orthodox wedding serviceThe Russian Orthodox wedding: venchanie, the questions of consent, crowns held by witnesses, the Julian calendar and which days are closed.
- The Serbian Orthodox wedding serviceThe Serbian Orthodox wedding: the kum and kumstvo, the old calendar, the slava a bride takes on, and what a parish asks before it sets a date.
- Dating in the Georgian Orthodox traditionWhat the jurisdiction tells you and what it does not, before anybody is planning a wedding.
- The Orthodox wedding service, from beginning to endEvery moment of the rite in order, with the prayers printed in full.
Church: The Georgian Apostolic Autocephalous Orthodox Church, with its patriarch in Tbilisi
Reviewed: · Editorial standards
Sources: Patriarchate of Georgia · UNESCO — Georgian polyphonic singing
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