Georgian Church fails to reach compromise with Moscow
Speaking at a forum of religious figures in Baku, the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC), Ilia II, has stated again that "Abkhazia and South Ossetia must return to the fold of Georgia and the Georgian nation will never accept the loss of these territories".
In the autumn of 2008 the patriarch met with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and after he returned to Georgia he said: "Georgia will not be able to exist without Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which means the country's territorial integrity must and will be restored".
Ilia II undoubtedly expected the support of the Russian president at least in the returning of Georgian refugees to the regions of South Ossetia (the Akhalgori district and the village of Perevi) which were controlled by the Georgian forces before the August 2008 war. However in an recent interview with CNN the patriarch noted that "in spite of
understanding the refugees have not come back".
It is notable that for the first months after the war the Georgian patriarch was criticizing President Saakashvili. The patriarch even said that: "We should not beat our head against a brick wall, if we can avoid it. The task of a captain is to avoid the reefs and save the ship". The hint was transparent enough; in Georgia many people accuse of Saakashvili of being unable to come to an agreement with Russia and avoid the war. But recent statements by the patriarch indicate that he is disappointed by the lack of a possibility to reach to a compromise with Moscow, not only with the secular authorities, but also with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Last year the leaders of the two churches examined the possibility of the two patriarchs' meeting. Ilia II unexpectedly suggested having a meeting on the territory of Abkhazia (the Russian Church still considers it part of the Georgian Church's canonical territory) which evoked a protest from the Abkhazian side. The then-Foreign Minister of Abkhazia, Sergei Shamba, stated: "Ilia II will not get a visa to enter the territory of our country".
In the past, the Georgian patriarch also complicated relations with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In 1989, he issued an edict stating that "Because more frequent murders, the Georgian Orthodox Church has decided that from now on each Georgian who kills another Georgian regardless of the guilt or non-guilt of a victim will be excommunicated forever and ever." In Abkhazia and South Ossetia this edict was circulated in a slightly modified form ("anyone who kills a Georgian regardless of the guilt or non-guilt of the victim") and was interpreted as aimed exclusively at the Abkhazians and the Ossetians.
The Georgian patriarch considered such an interpretation an ill-intentioned distortion. But independent observers had already noted that even if the edict regarded only Georgians (as victims and as murderers) then the Church was dissociating itself from a considerable part of its flock, because canonically Abkhazia and South Ossetia were in the fold of the Georgian Orthodox Church. It is hard to believe that the Church wanted such a separation but the comments were understood politically.
Georgy Kalatozishvili, Tbilisi. Exclusively for VK.
