About Celebrations – Alilo Procession

Georgia marks Christmas according to the Julian Calendar and Christmas Day is celebrated on 7 January. On Christmas Day, Orthodox Christians throughout Georgia take part in a religious procession, called “Alilo”, as part of their Christmas celebrations.

Alilo Procession in Tbilisi

Icons, crosses and banners are carried through the streets and gifts are distributed to the needy. The procession was banned during Soviet times but was restored in the 1990s.

Alilo Procession in Tbilisi_3

The Alilo procession is named after a traditional Georgian Christmas carol.

Alilo Procession in Tbilisi_2

The procession held in Tbilisi begins in Rose Revolution Square (Georgian: ვარდების რევოლუციის მოედანი) and moves down Rustaveli Avenue, through Freedom Square and ends at the Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi (Georgian: თბილისის წმინდა სამების საკათედრო ტაძარი) commonly known as Sameba (Georgian: სამება for Trinity).

Alilo Procession in Tbilisi_5

Alilo Procession in Tbilisi_6

1604673_790234894326446_655633497_n

1536645_790232540993348_1971715096_n

Alilo Procession in Tbilisi_8

All photos courtesy of Tbilisi City Hall.

facebook-logo-ga (1)CLICK on the logo to visit GEORGIA ABOUT on Facebook and see photos and news about Georgia. Click LIKE on the page and become a friend of GEORGIA ABOUT.

Advertisement
Comments
3 Responses to “About Celebrations – Alilo Procession”
  1. Mags Corner says:

    That is beautiful! Wonderful pictures. Hugs

  2. reni says:

    Also you can see some nice Alilo photoes here: http://rena.ws/?p=1245

Trackbacks
Check out what others are saying...
  1. […] 7 January, thousands of Georgians across the country take part in a religious procession called ‘Alilo’. Clergymen, parishioners and children dressed in Stikari (a traditional robe) carry crosses, […]



Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: