Hacking the Sacred: Disinformation, Cyber Operations, and Church–State Resilience in Georgia

Abstract

This article examines the convergence of cyber operations, disinformation, and religious soft power in Georgia's contested geopolitical environment. Since the 2008 Russo-Georgian war, and with growing intensity around the 2019 GRU-attributed cyberattack and the extensive espionage campaign uncovered ahead of the October 2024 parliamentary elections, Georgia has become a proving ground for Russian hybrid operations that combine technical intrusion with narrative warfare. The Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC), as the country's most trusted public institution and a central node of national identity, occupies an ambiguous position in this environment: it is simultaneously a target of manipulation, an inadvertent amplifier of Kremlin-aligned narratives on "traditional values," and a potential partner in building societal resilience. Drawing on Joseph Nye's concept of soft power, Daniel Philpott's account of religious actors and sovereignty, and Jeffrey Haynes' framework for religion in international relations, the article develops the concept of "sacred infrastructure" — the communicative, administrative, and symbolic assets of religious institutions that become attack surfaces in hybrid conflict. It argues that church–state resilience against disinformation requires neither the instrumentalization of the Church by the state nor its insulation from digital-era security policy, but a deliberate, transparent framework of cooperation that protects ecclesiastical autonomy while closing the vulnerabilities that hostile actors exploit.