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When he came to power in January 2004 Mikheil Saakashvili had a strong relationship with the Catholicos-Patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church and the wider clergy.

As late as this Spring that relationship seemed to be more or less intact when the Patriarch insisted protestors back down in their conflict with the government.

But, behind the scenes, things were not all they seemed and since end of the protests in July the conflicit between Saakashvili's regime and the church has broken to the surface of Georgian public life.

The Georgian church continues to enjoy good relations with its Russian sister church and the Georgian Patriarch has refused to support the government's policy of boycotting cultural and political links with the Russian Federation.

In response the regime plainly ordered the national broadcasters - all of which receive what the government refers to as "state aid" in return for supporting the president - to attack the Patriarch and in September Imedi duly described him as promoting Russian interests in Georgia.

The Patriarchate publicly rebuked the broadcasters for this behaviour (without linking it to the government) but then, in October, the Patriarch compared Mikheil Saakashvili to a man repeatedly banging his head against a wall over his policy towards South Ossetia.

Then things started to get really nasty. Tea Tutberidze, a leading figure in the libertarian Liberty Institute admitted to distributing (though not making) videos that insulted the Patriarch.

In a panic the regime - who clearly thought things had gone too far - seized computer equipment and hauled two young men in for questioning before admitting that making the videos was not a crime.

Tutberidze and her allies responded by openly accusing the Patriarch of being a KGB asset and publishing an open letter, posed in the form of questions, that essentially accused the head of the church of working for the Kremlin for many years.

The church has fought back, now accusing the government of orchestrating a campaign by the broadcasters against it.

The conflict has multiple elements. Georgia is far from a theocratic society but the church was and is seen as central to the nation's survival under two centuries of Russification and it takes an exceptional kind of political bravery or personal recklessness to attack it directly in the way Tea Tutberidze has over many years (she previously defended Jehovah's Witnesses against attacks by the Orthodox faithful).

On the other hand many see the libertarian attack as also containing many nationalistic, Russo-phobic and intolerant elements.

What is not clear is how the regime will now respond. They clearly want to take on the Patriarch but are not brave enough to do it directly, while the incendiary nature of the attacks by Tutberidze and her allies - all of whom treated allegations that they were acting on government orders contemptuously - have also scared them about the unpredictability of proxies.

The opposition have been unable to put many people on the streets in recent months but few would doubt that a government in open conflict with the church would be walking a high wire.

The next steps in this "church struggle" could have profound implications for the future of Georgia.