Ivanishvili also participates in the selection of the next patriarch | SSG Secret Files

Most of the illegal operative surveillance concerns important processes within the Patriarchate. One of the files, where the specific names of the clergy are read, is related to the identity of the future patriarch.

Bidzina Ivanishvili is personally interested in the secret records of who wants to be the patriarch after Ilia II. He receives this information from a cleric who has close ties to Ivanishvili's family. The SSG recordings also include Father Bartholome's visit to Ivanishvili.

Archimandrite Bartolome Pirtskhalashvili informed the nun Barbara Ivanishvili that he was visiting Sachkhere in the Bidzina Ivanishvili family. According to Pirtskhalashvili, Bidzina Ivanishvili was interested in which high priest has the ambition to be the new Patriarch, to which Pirtskhalashvili named - Metropolitan Iobi Akiashvili, Daniel Datuashvili, Dimitri Shiolashvili and Abraham Garmelia. Pirtskhalashvili notes that Bidzina Ivanishvili and his wife Ekaterine Khvedelidze from the mentioned metropolitans positively rated Abraham Garmelia, while Iobi Akiashvili was negatively evaluated.

The fact that Bidzina Ivanishvili's political interest in the issue of the future patriarch is great can be clearly seen from the operational recordings of the SSG. In covert surveillance and eavesdropping files, it is clear from this one document that the government is trying to obtain information about the groups who will support Reverend Shio's candidacy if he is to be one of the way to fight for the patriarchal throne.