Apostille and Legalization of Latin Documents - Diplomas, Church Records and the Holy See

Latin diplomas: apostilled in the issuing country like any diploma

A diploma written in Latin is a public document of the country whose university issued it and is apostilled there by that country's competent authority: the Secretary of State of the relevant state or the US Department of State for American diplomas, the rechtbank for Dutch ones, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or notarius publicus for Scandinavian ones, the Ministry of Education or NAWA for Polish ones, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Hungarian ones, and so on. Most universities must first authenticate the diploma or the registrar's signature before the apostille. The Latin text itself makes no difference to the apostille procedure; it matters only at the translation stage, where the Georgian recognition center or employer needs to know what the Latin says. Once the apostilled diploma reaches Tbilisi, we translate it and the apostille certificate into Georgian and notarize the translation, usually the same day.

Parish records: chancery certification and civil apostille

Catholic parish registers are Church records, but for periods before civil registration - and in some countries for later periods too - states recognize them as the official record of births, marriages and deaths, and citizenship authorities accept them when properly certified. The route is: the parish or the diocesan archive issues an extract or certified copy of the Latin entry, the diocesan chancery certifies it, and the civil authority of the country apostilles it as a public document, which Poland, Lithuania, Italy, Hungary, Croatia and Slovakia do for church records of the relevant periods through their state archives or civil registry authorities. Where the register is now held by a state archive - common in Poland and Lithuania for older books - the archive issues the extract and the apostille follows the archive route. For Georgian Catholic records held by the Apostolic Administration or the National Archives of Georgia, the chancery or archive certifies and the Georgian apostille follows. We advise on the route for each country and period, and we translate the certified and apostilled extract for the citizenship authority, with re-certification by a sworn translator in that country where it requires one.

Holy See documents: no apostille, the nunciature route

The Holy See is not a party to the Hague Apostille Convention, so no apostille can be placed on a Vatican document and none is needed within the Church. For civil use of a Holy See document in Georgia or elsewhere - a papal honor cited in a citizenship or naturalization file, a pontifical university diploma for state recognition, a curial decree affecting civil status - the document is legalized by the Secretariat of State and then by the apostolic nunciature of the receiving country; the Apostolic Nunciature in Tbilisi handles Georgia. Georgian civil documents going to the Holy See or a pontifical institution are notarized here, certified by the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and legalized by the nunciature. Diocesan documents from other countries used in Georgia follow the parish record route where civil use is intended and the chancery route where only the Church is involved. We handle the Tbilisi steps directly and the foreign steps through partners.

Documents most often legalized in Latin files

• Citizenship by descent: Latin baptismal, marriage and burial extracts from Polish, Lithuanian, Italian, Hungarian and Croatian parish registers and state archives, chancery-certified and apostilled, for the citizenship authorities of those countries.
• Georgian recognition of foreign degrees: Latin diplomas from American, Dutch, Scandinavian, Portuguese, Hungarian, Polish and Baltic universities, apostilled in the issuing country.
• Canonical marriage: baptismal certificates with annotations, certificates of freedom to marry and dispensations between the Apostolic Administration of the Caucasus and dioceses abroad, chancery-certified.
• Nullity cases: tribunal acts and decrees between Georgian and foreign tribunals and the Roman Rota.
• Clergy and religious: letters of good standing, celebrets, seminary and pontifical university records.
• Georgian Catholic records: extracts from Tbilisi, Kutaisi and Samtskhe-Javakheti parish books for descendants abroad.

Georgian Catholic parish records for descendants abroad

The Latin-rite Catholic community in Georgia - in Tbilisi since the seventeenth century, in Kutaisi, Batumi and Gori, and in the villages of Samtskhe-Javakheti - kept its registers in Latin and Georgian, and descendants of Georgian Catholics now in Poland, Italy, France, Germany and the Americas request baptismal and marriage extracts for genealogy, for Church purposes and occasionally for citizenship claims in the other direction. The surviving registers are held by the Apostolic Administration, by parishes and by the National Archives of Georgia, and we assist clients abroad in locating the entry, obtaining a certified extract, having it certified by the chancery or the archive and apostilled by the Georgian authority, and translating it from Latin or Georgian into the language the receiving authority needs.

Timing, sequence and common errors

Apostilles on foreign Latin diplomas take from a day to a few weeks depending on the country; chancery certification of a parish extract a few days to a few weeks depending on the diocese; civil apostille on church records a week or two; nunciature legalization one to three weeks. Translation is same day for a diploma and one to two days for a register extract. The sequence is: obtain the extract or diploma, certify it (chancery or university), apostille or legalize it, then translate the whole bundle including certifications and apostille, then notarize. The errors we correct most often are a parish extract sent for apostille without the chancery's certification, a register entry copied without its margin annotations, a diploma translated before the apostille so the certificate is untranslated, a Vatican document sent for an apostille that does not exist, and a Latin name rendered in three different vernacular forms across a citizenship file. Send the highest-resolution images you can, both pages of a register opening, and we run this check before anything is submitted.

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