On Saturday, a large-scale protest was held in Tbilisi demanding severe punishment for an activist accused of destroying a religious icon depicting Joseph Stalin, recently installed in the Georgian capital, Reuters and Agerpres news agencies reported.

A woman allegedly splashed paint on an icon displayed in the city’s main cathedral on Tuesday in a protest that exposed deep divisions in Georgia over the former Soviet dictator’s legacy in his home country.

According to the BBC, Nata Peradze published a video in which she splashed paint on the icon and said she was protesting what she believed to be the glorification of a tyrant.

“Stalin killed my whole family, he was terrifying and terrifying, he was not a hero,” she told Politico, adding that she had received death threats after posting the video on Facebook.

Thousands of Orthodox believers and supporters of the ultra-conservative pro-Russian Alt-Info movement gathered outside the country’s parliament on Saturday before marching through the city to the cathedral.

The icon depicts scenes from the life of Saint Matrona, a Russian Orthodox saint, and in one she is seen blessing Georgian-born Stalin, an ardent atheist who brutally suppressed religion in the Soviet Union.

The icon presented to the cathedral by the pro-Russian political party “Patriot Alliance”

The police opened proceedings for “petty hooliganism” and interviewed the woman who damaged the icon.

But some Orthodox church activists and believers want the woman to be criminally investigated and potentially jailed for what they say is an act that insulted their icon and faith. According to local media reports, they also want to tighten the law on such incidents.

The pro-Russian political party “Alliance of Patriots” said it handed over the icon to the cathedral several months ago. However, it only came to light this year after former opposition politician Giorgi Kandelaki flagged it in protest against an attempt to expose “one of the biggest mass murderers in history” in a “positive light”.

In its statement, the Patriarchate of Georgia noted that the icon can depict “real stories related to the life of the saint, including leaders and ordinary people, heretics and persecutors of the Christian faith.” “However,” the agency added, “this does not in any way mean that the image glorifies these figures or ascribes any dignity to them.”

Stalin and his legacy in Georgia

Stalin has a complicated legacy in Georgia. Yosyp Dzhugashvili was born in 1878 in the city of Gori in the east of the country. A key figure in the Russian Revolution that brought the Bolsheviks to power, he led the USSR from 1924 until his death in 1953.

Millions died as Stalin imposed iron discipline and state terror to eliminate “enemies of the people” and build a communist state.

Many people in this small country in the South Caucasus reject the legacy of the Soviet Union. But some still regard Stalin with some pride as he rose from humble origins in Georgia to lead a superpower and defeat Nazi Germany, the BBC writes.