[1][2] On 18 August 2003, Shio was appointed to the newly created Georgian Orthodox eparchy of Senaki and Chkhorotsku with a bishops rank.
Bishop Shio was additionally placed in charge of the Georgian parishes in Australia and New Zealand on 30 April 2009 and elevated to the rank of a metropolitan on 2 August 2010.
[2] According to the Georgian media outlets, Bishop Shio was a childhood friend of the President of Georgia Giorgi Margvelashvili and the businessman Levan Vasadze.
The latter is known for his conservative views and anti-Western rhetoric[3] and has presided, since 2013, over the board of trustees of the government-sponsored Georgian Demographic Revival Fund of which Shio is also a member.
The decree, drafted by Ilia II with his own hand, came amid the ongoing internal tensions within the church leadership, widely publicized in the aftermath of the "cyanide case", in which a Georgian Orthodox priest was arrested and ruled guilty on charges of plotting to murder the Patriarch's personal secretary and adviser with cyanide earlier that year.