Any visitor casting their eyes over the vivid paintings inside a church in Sujuna, western Georgia, may get a surprise.
Among various generic sinners engulfed in the flames of hell is a clear depiction of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin pleading with three angels as they cast him into damnation.
The image is one of several paintings of Soviet leaders in churches that have come to light since a recent uproar broke out over the depiction of Josef Stalin inside Tbilisi's cathedral.
Davit Khidasheli was one of a group of artists who painted the interior of the Sujuna church in the 1990s, soon after Georgia regained its independence after 70 years of atheist Soviet rule. The icon painter told RFE/RL's Georgian Service the depiction of Lenin represents the Godlessness of the political system that "sacrificed millions of people and stifled the development of society."
RFE/RL's Georgian Service has identified more examples of explicit anti-Soviet paintings inside several churches across the Caucasus country.
In a church in an eastern suburb of Tbilisi named after monk Gabriel Urgebadze, an interior painting depicts a famous historical protest in which Urgebadze set fire to a giant propaganda poster of Vladimir Lenin during a parade in Tbilisi in 1965. The monk died in 1995 and was designated a saint in 2012.
Other Orthodox Christians in Georgia have been less willing to include likenesses of Soviet leaders. In 2022, painter Tea Intskirveli was asked to replicate Urgebadze's iconic poster-burning scene on an icon but her clients later asked her to obscure Lenin's face.
"When you represent a story about the burning of an effigy of Lenin, it's necessary to show what is burning, and what the hero of the story did. But I'm answerable to the congregation," Intskirveli told RFE/RL's Georgian Service. The painter obscured the Soviet founder's face with fire.
Another political-religious painting has been slightly adapted from its original. A mural inside the cathedral of Rustavi, near Tbilisi, is almost identical to the Sujuna painting featuring Lenin, but also includes the ethnic Georgian Stalin.
Icon painter Davit Khidasheli says painting the communist rulers was the idea of the artists themselves and the head of the cathedral was not paying close attention to who was being depicted. But he says a parishioner in Rustavi spotted Stalin being painted and begged the young artists not to continue.
"A virtuous lady came and fell to her knees crying, asking us not to paint [Stalin]. Her request was understandable, she had certain feelings about Stalin," Khidasheli said. "We partially acquiesced and changed his face. But you can at least recognize him by his moustache."
After the recent uproar over the depiction of Stalin inside Tbilisi's cathedral, the icon was defaced, then eventually removed. It is reportedly being repainted and will be returned to display in the cathedral without Stalin.
Georgia is not the only formerly communist country whose artists have cast their former leaders into figurative hell. In Montenegro, an anonymous fresco painter depicted Yugoslavia's Josip Broz Tito suffering damnation inside Podgorica's Church of Resurrection alongside socialist godheads Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
The church faced some criticism for mixing politics with faith when the painting was unveiled in 2014, but a church leader at the time told journalists the trio "personify communist evil in the Balkans" and added that the artist should be "allowed the freedom to see things as he wishes."
