By The European Times | Created at 2026-09-01 07:46:34 | Updated at 2026-09-05 09:22:18
4 days ago
The Georgian Catholicos-Patriarch Shio III raised an unusual bioethical question for a patriarchal sermon: on the limits of medical intervention in the last moments of human life. According to him, sometimes a person who is already at the end of his earthly path is subjected to excessive medical interventions, instead of having prayer, peace and reverence for the mystery of death around him. His words were delivered on August 28, the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, in the Patriarchal Cathedral “Sioni” in Tbilisi.
The main topic of the sermon was the Christian understanding of death. Shio III recalled that according to church teaching, death for a Christian is not final destruction, but a transition to eternal life. He used the image of the “third birth”: a person is born bodily, then spiritually in the sacrament of Baptism, and after death – to eternal life. According to him, however, modern man rarely prepares for this “third birth” and even avoids thinking about his own death.
It was in this context that the patriarch touched on the behavior around the bedside of the dying. Instead of reverence and a prayerful mood, he said, there is too often anxiety, commotion and fear. Then Shio III added the phrase that attracted the attention of the Georgian media: “Often a person who is already going to the other world is excessively tortured with various medical means.” And he immediately softened the generalization with the clarification: “Sometimes it happens like this.”
Shio III did not call for the termination of necessary treatment, nor did he speak of euthanasia, assisted suicide or the refusal of medical care. Terms of this type are not present in the sermon. His words raise the issue of excessive and useless medical intervention at the very end of life – a problem that in modern bioethics is discussed as “therapeutic persistence” or disproportionate treatment that can no longer really change the outcome, but can increase the person’s suffering.
The Patriarch also noted that the relatives of the dying person must be prepared to accept death not only as a medical catastrophe that must be postponed at all costs, but also as a spiritual event. According to Shio, the fear of death largely stems from the lost awareness of its meaning in the Christian perspective.
The Patriarch’s statement attracted unusually strong media attention. There is already a dispute on social networks and Georgian forums, including attempts to link his words to euthanasia.
