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  • Relations between Georgian and Armenian churches

    Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
    July 30 2014




    Relations between Georgian and Armenian churches

    30 July 2014 - 2:02pm

    A sketch with an incident in the background

    By Georgy Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza


    Recent events at the Surb Echmiadzin church in Tbilisi city center
    drew attention to relations between the Georgian and Armenian
    churches. The clash between Georgians and Armenians in the Avlabar
    District of Tbilisi is unique and was followed by an uncompromising
    stand in finding the causes of the conflict. Any professional
    conflictologist can say that even if it was an ordinary quarrel, it
    was based on the interests of two communities.

    This is why this ordinary quarrel has such broad interpretations. The
    Georgian side asserts that a local Georgian woman was irritated by an
    Armenian cleric blocking a drive by parking his car. The Georgian
    Eparchy of the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC) said that two
    congregants tried to help the woman and a conflict started. Imagine
    two courteous young men helping a lady and she just keeps shouting and
    insulting Armenians and their church.

    There is no point in searching for all the nuances and huddles of
    motivations for the quarrel. What is more important is that it
    highlighted religious tensions between the two states and communities.
    If we do not look so deep as into the schism of the Dyophysites and
    the Miaphysites and take the last 25-year history, we can say that
    differences were first seen at the start of the construction of the
    St. Trinity Cathedral in Tbilisi in 1989.

    The patriarchy of the Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC) decided to build
    a huge temple on a hill near an Armenian cemetery. The territory of
    the church, Armenian officials say, will take part of the territory of
    the cemetery. The sides managed to keep that problem down. The St.
    Trinity Cathedral was built and Georgia cannot be imagined without it,
    the building fits so well into the architecture and the ecclesiastical
    life of the Georgian capital.

    There are no dogmatic disputes between the churches, because the
    differences had long been established and recognized. The Armenian
    church insists on the return of closed churches on Georgian territory,
    mainly the Surb Norashen Church in Tbilisi.

    The fate of the church became tragic after the failure of the AAC and
    the GOC to decide its ownership. According to the Georgian narrative,
    often cultivated by Georgian clerical and near-clerical confidants,
    the Surb Norashen and other churches in Georgia were actually Georgian
    until they were bought by Armenian clerics with lies and gold. One
    needs only to see the architecture of Surb Norashen to be confident
    that it is an Armenian church.

    The Armenian diplomacy is to keep the church closed if it cannot be
    handed over to the AAC. So the statuesque Christian church remains
    empty, gradually becoming desolated and crumbling. Armenian officials
    visiting Georgia often visit it and stand at the half-broken chancel
    with stern faces.

    Armenian Patriarch Karekin II discussed the problem during his visit
    to Georgia. It almost turned into a row when it appeared on social
    networks. In the recording, the Armenian patriarch was scolding his
    Georgian counterpart for refusing legal status to the eparchy of the
    AAC. Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II is a soft and polite man, he tried
    to object.

    Georgian President Saakashvili decided to intervene and, with the help
    of the parliamentary majority, he gave the Armenian eparchy legal
    status.

    In its turn, the GOC patriarchy declared the foundation of the
    Agarak-Tashir Eparchy, stretching throughout the Lore Province that
    Georgia and Armenian had fought for in 1918. The GOC assures that the
    region has Georgian Orthodox churches and they should be under the
    control of the GOC. The Holy Echmiadzin, expressing no doubts that the
    churches there exist, said that they do not belong to Georgia.

    Billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili proposed restoration of all Armenian
    churches in Georgia at his own expense. The GOC did not give him the
    permission. But even if his benevolent project succeeded, the problems
    of ownership of churches, control of the AAC eparchy and renewal of
    worship in Surb Norashen would have not been resolved.

    Unlike in the age of the Council of Chalcedon, when there were no
    Georgians or Armenians in their modern understanding and there were
    Dyophysites and Miaphysites instead, the relations between the GOC and
    the AAC are affected by their nation-building function, based mainly
    on ethnicity.

    http://vestnikkavkaza.net/analysis/politics/58282.html

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