This summer has been our first opportunity to live in an
Orthodox country and I wanted to share some of our experiences and observations
about Christian life in Tbilisi and Georgia in general. Christianity has deep roots in Georgia that
extend all the way back to the original Apostles. Georgia was first evangelized by Andrew and
is the final resting place of Matthias (the one who was chosen to replace Judas)—his
tomb was once in a church around which a military fortress was built, now only
4 miles from the Turkish border, but the church was razed by the Ottoman when
they took the fort and only a cross inside marks St. Matthias’ grave. Georgia has been attacked by many
powers. The Turks alone have gone to war
with the Georgians over 300 times trying to take and occupy the land. In the southeastern part of the country we
visited a monastery—Davit Gareja—where the Persian army entered and slaughtered
all the monks on one Easter Sunday. We
have also visited another monastery—Gelati—in the central region of the country
that saw monks fall to the same fate at the hands of Arab armies. Both monasteries contain the monks’ relics
and are truly beautiful, located on mountain sides or in the desert. The Svetitskhoveli Cathedral in Mksheta, the
old capital, is built over a grave that contains the robe Christ wore while
carrying the cross to the crucifixion, not the burial cloth, and came to
Georgia from a Jewish man named Elioz who returned from Jerusalem to
Mksheta. The robe ended up with his sister
who was buried with it and the cathedral rests over this space. The church is beautiful and incredibly
peaceful, you recognize that you are in a holy place when you enter there. Even with all this history, the contemporary
Christian life in the country is not strong.
Kazbegi |
What is the best way to describe the contemporary Christian
life in Georgia? When one remembers that
the Soviet occupation lasted from the early 1920s until 1991, there will be a
long and difficult recovery period. But
the Georgian Orthodox Church seems to be clinging to political power and
continues to be very nationalistic. The
prevailing mentality wishes to block all other religious expression (there is
not a legally recognized constitutional right to change religion) and to
propose the Orthodox faith through the dominance of culture thus making it the
only possible option. New churches are
being constructed and old churches are being restored, but other than at a
formal level, the Orthodox Church does not have a cultural presence. In a sense, it is like the situation Giussani
described in The Risk of Education
where Italy in the 1950s had many people attending Mass, but few saw a place
for Christ in their lives. Faith had
become a formality and was almost meaningless in individual lives. This is the case here. But the situation is much weaker than in
Italy as only 8% of the population is faithful to the Orthodox religion. There is a catechesis crisis as very few their
faith and superstitions are abundant. In
some ways, the Church teachings seem to conform themselves to the dominant
political culture rather than being faithful to the Gospel; maybe I am wrong
but this is what our experience suggests.
Tomb of Apostle Matthias |
The Catholic Church has endured suffering with almost all of
its parishes being taken by the communist government and given to the Orthodox.
The Marxist government only allowed the
Church to maintain one parish in Tbilisi and all the others were
confiscated. The Catholic cathedral in
Tbilisi was appropriated by the state to use for storage. When communism ended, the government allowed
the Church to re-gain the cathedral but the other parishes continued to be in
the hands of the Orthodox. Even the beautiful
gothic cathedral of Batumi remains under Orthodox control. It is strange to visit these appropriated
churches because the Orthodox have maintained frescos, some of the statues
(probably those that could not be removed!) and confessionals (some turned into
small gift shops) that are out-of-place in
an Orthodox-style place of worship.
The architecture is classically Catholic—Latin cross plan with side
naves separated by columns rather than Greek cross which is typical of the Orthodox
Church—and the buildings have Latin inscriptions indicating their Catholic name. These are parishes that have been stolen by
the Orthodox who now do their best to block the Catholic presence in
Georgia.
The Catholic Church is not pursuing the return of its lifted
parishes but trying to build new parishes to replace the ones that were
stolen. The Church has been successful in
building a new beautiful parish in Batumi although it is already too small as
the Sunday Mass crowds are too large for its seating capacity. In Kutaisi, the Church is meeting in a house and
cannot receive the authorization to build a new parish because the local mayor
has received pressure from the Orthodox Church and will not sign the
authorization permit. The Church has
invested much time in gaining approval for all the necessary components for
this construction project, but although everything else has been approved, the
project cannot start until the mayor signs the paper. Ironically, the historic Catholic Church in
Kutaisi, now in Orthodox hands, is named for the Immaculate Conception and the
local hierarchy has built a theological college outside its doors. After taking the only Catholic parish, they
are refusing to allow the Catholic Church to replace it.
Davit Gareja (on the border with
Azerbaijan)
|
While the Orthodox hierarchy and religious never ‘officially’
threatened the Catholic faithful with violence, this is not true for the
Georgian Orthodox faithful. In 2002, the
Catholic bishop led a pilgrimage to a monastery which houses the tomb of St
Nina, the saint who brought the Christian faith to Georgia sometime around the fifth
century. When the group was approaching
a city they were to pass through on their way, they were first stopped by the
police who checked everyone’s id. Next,
the local Orthodox religious showed up and harassed the group. After they left, a group of laypeople armed
with baseball bats and other instruments of violence came and physically
threatened the pilgrims if they stepped inside the town. The bishop was amongst the faithful and
decided to end the pilgrimage. The
Georgian Orthodox said that Catholics were not welcome even to pass through
their town. The police and Orthodox
clergy were complicit in this threat which they unofficially sponsored. The local Catholics were ashamed to be Georgian
on this day.
Another instance of Orthodox antagonism to the Catholic
Church happened in 2003 when the Nuncio came to Tbilisi to sign a bilateral
agreement between the Georgian government and the Holy See that would protect freedom
of religion and that had been in the works for a long time. On that day, hundreds of people flooded the
streets, including Orthodox priests and a bishop, protesting this signing, saying
that they did not want the Catholic Church in Georgia. The Patriarch and the
Orthodox hierarchy were behind these protests, which had obviously been planned
in advance, but claimed that they had nothing to do with it, that it was the ‘natural’
reaction of the faithful. The Nuncio and
the Vatican were extremely disappointed about this last minute turn-face of the
Georgian government. In a later note
published on the Osservatore Romano, the Nuncio publicly expressed his
disappointment and accused the Orthodox Church of spreading false rumors about
the Catholic Church and the proposed agreement with the Georgian government. John Paul II suffered greatly because of this ‘betrayal’.
This animosity is still present and we have had only a
slight experience of it. Last Saturday,
we hired a taxi to bring us to Kakheti, the wine region of the country, where we
would visit some cities and Orthodox churches. This was a long day as we were picked up in
Tbilisi and drove around the region and returned to our apartment fourteen
hours later. The sights were beautiful
and when we were at the furthest point from Tbilisi, we passed Telavi to visit
the Alaverdi Cathedral, a grand picturesque church surrounded by a stone wall
and the Caucasus Mountains in the background.
Our taxi driver accompanied us inside as we walked toward the church; at
the main door, we were met by the two young men wearing black shirts (maybe
seminarians, servers, or church volunteers) who slammed the huge door in our
face and said that we were not enter. Ironically,
they knew nothing about us other than that we were not Georgian (it would not
have mattered even if we were of a different orthodox faith, the thing that
mattered was our nationality). After a
few moments they walked away, but waited by the entrance in the city wall
surrounding the cathedral for us to leave.
In any case, this was the only time in Georgia where we were in any way
threatened.
Icon from Orthodox Church in Tblisi |
After the Soviet oppression of the Church, the Catholic
population is small and has yet to recover its previous numbers. The local clergy and bishop are beautiful
people who have a great humility and receive foreigners with great
affection. We have spent most of our
time attending the small Catholic Cathedral in Tbilisi and have been fortunate to
get to know the bishop and local priest.
The bishop asks people to call him Fr. Giuseppe rather than ‘Your
Excellency’ or ‘Your Grace’ and actually has worked on the Cathedral renovation
with his bare hands. He has a difficult
task in his ecumenical meetings with the Orthodox hierarchy who make life
difficult for Catholics. For example,
they do not even recognize Catholic baptism and make life hard for those
families where one member is Orthodox and the other Catholic. Yes, Bishop Giuseppe has a challenging
assignment but he may be the perfect person appointed to this task. I believe that under his leadership the Church
has a bright future in Georgia.
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