Catholic Church in Georgia

Georgian Catholich Church has called the georgian Catholics, who followd the oriental (byzantine) rite. There were Georgian Catholics since 1860, they founded the monastery Fery-Quoa in Constantinopel (it exist still and is today in private hand). Two religious congregations of the Immaculate Conception were founded in 1861 also in Constantinopel by Father Peter Karishiaranti (Petré Kharistshirashvili) to work among the Catholics of Georgia of both Byzantine and Latin rites, but they were impeded in their work by the seizure of Georgia by the Russian Soviets. In 1917 when Georgia cut off ecclesiastical bonds from the Moscow Patriarchatea and some Georgians closed to already existing Georgian Byzantine rite. The number of them was c. 10 000 in 1920, whereas there were 40 000 of the Latin rite. The Byzantine Georgian Catholics ceased to exist in the Soviet time, the remnant belong today to Latine rite catholics.