two dissenter Christian movements: the ultra-Orthodox Old Believers, and the Spiritual Christians (the Molokans and the Doukhobors). The majority of these groups have left the country since the mid-1980s. Under Soviet rule (1921-1990), the number of active churches and priests declined sharply and religious education became nearly nonexistent. Membership in the Georgian Orthodox Church has increased markedly since independence in 1991. The church maintains 4 theological seminaries, 2 academies, several schools, and 27 church dioceses; it has 700 priests, 250 monks, and 150 nuns. The Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, Ilia II, with his seat in Tbilisi, heads the Church. Several religions, including the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Catholic Church, Judaism, and Islam, traditionally have coexisted with Georgian Orthodoxy. A large number of Armenians live in the southern Javakheti region, in which they constitute a majority of the population. Islam is prevalent among Azerbaijani and north Caucasus ethnic communities in the eastern part of the country and also is found in the regions of Adjara and Abkhazia. Judaism, which has been present since ancient times, is practiced in a number of communities throughout the country, especially in the largest cities, Tbilisi and Kutaisi. Approximately 8,000 Jews remain in the country, following two large waves of emigration, the first in the early 1970s and the second in the period of perestroika during the late 1980s. Before then, Jewish officials estimate, Georgia had as many as 100,000 Jews. There also are small numbers of Lutheran worshippers, mostly among descendants of German communities that first settled in the country from 1817. A small number of the ethno-religious group of the Yezidis have lived in the country for centuries. Christianity According to Orthodox tradition, Christianity was first preached in Georgia by the Apostles Simon and Andrew in the 1st century. It became the state religion of Kartli (Iberia) in 337. The conversion of Kartli to Christianity is credited to St. Nino of Cappadocia. The Georgian Orthodox Church, originally part of the Church of Antioch, gained its autocephaly and developed its doctrinal specificity progressively between the 5th and 10th centuries. The Bible was also translated into Georgian in the 5th century, as the Georgian alphabet was developed for that purpose. As was true elsewhere, the Christian church in Georgia was crucial to the development of a written language, and most of the earliest written works were religious texts. From the first centuries C.E., the cult of