Matthew 18:20

Who we are

Lay-led and clergy-supported, St. Nino’s Episcopal Church in Tbilisi, Georgia, is a Mission of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe (Anglican Communion).

As part of the one holy catholic (universal) and apostolic Church, we are called to live and proclaim God’s love, renewing our baptismal identity through liturgy, prayer, reflection, contemplation, music, fellowship, and service.

With God’s guiding Spirit and our shared life in Christ, we remain rooted in ancient Christianity while adapting to today’s realities. In this vein, we resist rigid dogmatism, instead meeting Gospel engagement with honest questioning. 

Service and worship

With a heart for equality, equity, justice, and compassion, our faith is naturally expressed through service. This flows from an incarnational understanding of God’s presence in the world and from Christ’s command to love our neighbor. At St. Nino’s, we focus on spreading the Gospel in our local community via presence, hospitality, and care. One ultimate goal is to regularly assess needs in Tbilisi and work to identify areas where we can offer meaningful support and develop outreach, inviting congregants and others to serve the community.

As such service will be enriched by diversity, so is our worship. Being a small church not native to this setting, St. Nino’s strives to be a spiritual home for people of various backgrounds. God’s love is made known through inclusive and grace-centered language, which is infused in prayer and sacraments. At the heart of these is the Eucharist, in which any baptized Christian can partake.

Congregational life

Since many come and go in our congregation, our common life is open, fluid, and always being renewed. With that wide heart, we offer a place where faith can be found, reclaimed, deepened, and lived with integrity. We make this offering especially to those with a secular past or who feel out of place in other religious settings. We warmly welcome and fully include newcomers in both worship and community life.

Furthermore, we invite our members to deepen their faith and explore what belonging to the Episcopal tradition in Georgia today means. We encourage them to be their faith by using their spiritual gifts. This includes building relationships, embracing responsibilities in the Church, and responding to the needs around them with kindness, compassion, and hope.

Leadership

With this participatory orientation, leadership is shared with laity and is gender-equal. Our priests and lay leaders authentically and humbly serve from a deep love of the Gospel. Priests offer their pastoral presence to the congregation and others in need, keeping St. Nino’s a welcoming, loving, safe, and stable place for all to come.