Death threats for a Stalin vandal prompt soul-searching in Orthodox Georgia

A boy leans forward to kiss the icon of Saint Matrona featuring Stalin inside Tbilisi's Holy Trinity Cathedral, known locally as Sameba [Robin Forestier-Walker/Al Jazeera]

Tbilisi, Georgia – When Nata Peradze heard that an icon featuring Joseph Stalin was on display inside Georgia’s largest cathedral, she decided to take action.

“It’s my pain,” Peradze told Al Jazeera. “We have no [discussions] about what happened and no memorials for the people who went through hell because of this guy. There were priests on my father’s side and on my mother’s there were dissidents. Some were deported to Siberia and some were lost and we never knew what happened to them.”