GEORGIAN PATRIARCHATE OBJECTS TO A DRAFT LAW ON RELIGIOUS CONFESSIONS LEGAL STATUS
Mzia Kupunia
July 6, 2011
Georgia
The Georgian Patriarchate has called on the Georgian lawmakers to
suspend the process of adopting a law on bringing a status of legal
entities of public law to several religious faiths in Georgia,
calling the adoption of the draft law with the first hearing an
“unexpected action.” “As it is known for the public, the status of the
Orthodox Church and a constitutional agreement was a subject of wide
discussions for years and an international expertise was also conducted
on this issue. Georgian Church has never been against and has always
supported granting a status to other religions existing in Georgia,
however this process has never continued, i.e. the government has not
set up a state commission which would study the issue,” the statement
of the Georgian Patriarchate reads.
According to the amendments passed with the first hearing at the
Georgian Parliament on July 1, five religious faiths in Georgia:
Armenian Apostolic Church, Roman Catholic Church, Evangelical Baptist
Church, as well as Muslim and Jewish communities will be registered as
legal entities of public law. Now these confessions are registered as
private entities of public law in Georgia. Receiving a legal status
has been a long time demand of the religious confessions existing
in Georgia.
During the Parliamentary debates on July 1, some opposition MPs
objected to granting legal status to some of the confessions named
in the list. “It is absolutely acceptable to give legal status to
traditional confessions in Georgia, however, when we are talking
about such confessions, which cannot be called traditional and which
have nothing to do with our country’s history and has no links with
our country’s fate, many questions arise,” Nika Laliashvili of the
Christian-Democratic Movement said during debates. He called on the
authorities to be “maximally restraint” when taking “such decisions.”
Laliashvili raised one more issue related to the legal status of
religious confessions in Georgia. “It would be important to know
whether our friendly states, let’s say Armenia has started discussing
the issue of giving legal status to Georgian Church in Armenia? Is this
issue on the agenda in Azerbaijan?” the MP said. Georgian Patriarchate
has also raised this question in its recent statement.
“It should be noted that the status of our church and taking care of
Georgian orthodox churches has not been raised in other states till
now,” the statement reads “against this background it is absolutely
unclear the adoption of such an important document without public
discussions. We think that it is necessary to stop the procedure
of adopting the law and public debates should be conducted in order
to establish a common public opinion and reach a consensus with the
Orthodox Church, as far as the majority of the country’s population
is orthodox Christian.”
Georgia’s ruling party lawmakers have dismissed the concerns over
religions groups’ legal status in the country, saying that it will
not shatter Georgian Orthodox Church’s special status in the country.
“There is a very special rule in force between the Georgian Orthodox
Church and the Georgian State – a constitutional agreement. As for
the status of other traditional churches and religious communities,
when we were adopting the constitutional agreement, all confessions
supported us to give a supreme status to the Georgian Orthodox Church.
It was also said [in the agreement] that the issue of other confessions
would also have arisen,” National Movement’s Gigi Tsereteli said.
One of the initiators of the draft law, MP Lasha Tordia answered
the claims of the opposition and the Patriarchate about the Georgian
Church’s status in neighbouring countries, saying that the Georgians
side discussed the issue of the Georgian Church’s status in Armenia
during the Armenian Patriarch’s visit to Georgia last month. “The
Georgian government will continue working in order for Armenia to
receive same regulations that will be adopted in Georgia,” he told
24 Saati newspaper.
The Armenian Apostolic Church has welcomed the start of the process
of granting legal status to the Armenian Church in Georgia. “There
is no doubt, that before this decision the Georgian government, the
Georgian Church and the society recognized the existence of the Armenia
church in the country, however this law will give us a big advantage
in terms of restoring our property rights on the churches which now
belong to the Georgian Culture Ministry,” Head of the Georgian Diocese
of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Bishop Vazgen Mirzakhanyan said,
according to Armenian news agencies.