"[1] Ilia II was born 4 December 1933 as Irakli Ghudushauri-Shiolashvili (Georgian: ირაკლი ღუდუშაური-შიოლაშვილი) in Ordzhonikidze (modern-day Vladikavkaz), an autonomous city[2] of North Caucasus Krai within the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, USSR.

The new patriarch began a course of reforms, enabling the Georgian Orthodox Church, once suppressed by the Soviet ideology, to largely regain its former influence and prestige by the late 1980s.

[3] The patriarch joined the people demonstrating in Tbilisi against the Soviet rule on 9 April 1989, and fruitlessly urged the protesters to withdraw to the nearby Kashueti Church to avoid the bloodshed.

[4][5] In 2002, the then-president of Georgia Eduard Shevardnadze and Ilia II signed a concordat whereby the Georgian Orthodox Church was granted a number of privileges, and holders of the office of patriarch were given legal immunity.

He also made a pastoral visit, bringing food and aid, to the Russian-occupied central Georgian city of Gori and the surrounding villages which were at the verge of humanitarian catastrophe.

[16] Ilia II was called "the most trusted man in Georgia" by CNN in 2010, and had the highest favourability rating among Georgian politicians (94%), according to a November 2013 National Democratic Institute for International Affairs poll.

On 7 October 2007, he publicly called in a sermon for consideration of establishing a constitutional monarchy under the Bagrationi dynasty (which the Russian Empire had dispossessed of the Georgian crown early in the 19th century).

[20] Ilia II favored the ancient house of Prince David Bagration of Mukhrani and initiated a marriage between this genealogically senior royal line and the Gruzinsky branch.

[22][21] In June 2018 he gave an official blessing and performed the wedding ceremony for Prince Juan de Bagration-Mukhrani and Kristine Dzidziguri at Svetitskhoveli Cathedral.

[23] In November 2024, the Georgian Orthodox Church released a statement signed by Ilia II congratulating the socially conservative governing party on its victory in a parliamentary election reportedly marred by fraud.

[27] In his sermons, Ilia II has condemned homosexuality and abortion, demanded television be censored to remove sexual content, denounced school textbooks for "insufficient patriotism," lectured against what he calls "extreme liberalism," and warned against "pseudo-culture" from abroad.

He has opposed attempts to give other Christian confessions equal status under Georgian law and has condemned international educational exchanges and working abroad as "unpatriotic.