GEORGIA Foreign agents and Orthodoxy, the identity of Georgia

In Tbilisi, leaders of the ruling Georgian Dream party call protesters “radicals” and even “satanists.” The patriarchy openly supports the government, which is committed to fighting against “the imposition of foreign, unusual and dangerous ideologies on the country’s population.” But the Archbishop of Dmanisi, Zenon Iaradžuli, asked that the law not be approved, which could also harm some NGOs related to the Church.

Tbilisi () – Beyond the political contrasts and the demonstrations against the law on “foreign influences”, the debate on the identity of the Georgian people has intensified during the days of Orthodox Easter, especially among young people, who are the most stressed by the street protests. On Rustaveli Prospekt, the central street of the capital, Tbilisi, the processions of protesters crossed the masses of people heading to church, and in addition to the Orthodox faithful, the festival of the Resurrection of Christ challenged many non-Christians. believers and non-practicing believers, as well as members of Georgia’s significant Muslim minority.

Leaders of the ruling Georgian Dream party described the protesters as “radicals” and even “satanists”, or “propagandists of LGBT culture”, people who “have lost all direction in life”. They are the ones who go around with earrings, tattoos and piercings, ‘disconnected from traditions’ with their colored hair and spider webs printed on their necks. According to government authorities, these young people “are being stripped of their gruzinstvo”, the “Georgian identity”, which in the 19th century the poet Ilja Čavčadadze defined with the triad “Homeland, Language and Faith”, although he himself later replaced “Faith” for “History”, after the Ottoman Empire returned the region of Adžaria to the predominantly Muslim Georgian governorate of Tsarist Russia.

However, the role of the Orthodox Church remains preeminent in the popular consciousness of Georgians, to the point that it is even enshrined in the country’s Constitution, and continues to defend the prevalence of the “patriotic triad” over any other orientation of the politics and social life. Unlike Armenia, which broke its dependence on the Patriarchate of Constantinople in ancient dogmatic disputes, Georgia has always remained faithful to Byzantine Orthodoxy, allowing it to maintain a relationship of great assonance even with the rule of Russian Tsarism.

Of so many statements in these Easter days, starting with those of the President of Parliament Šalva Papuašvili, “you cannot be Georgian without being Orthodox”, also faithful practitioners of the Patriarchal Church led by Ilya II, a great defender of the patriotic cause. On the occasion of the approval of the law on “foreign influences”, the Church published a text in which it stated that it “supports the wishes of the people and politicians to integrate into Europe”, but at the same time “it cannot remain in silence in the face of the campaign to discredit the national Church, carried out by non-governmental organizations and television channels financed from abroad, in parallel with the growth of propaganda of the sinful life model of LGBT tendencies”, for which the law seems to the clergy absolutely necessary.

The Patriarchate openly supports the Georgian Dream government, which has pledged to combat “the imposition on the country’s population of foreign, unusual and dangerous ideologies, which increase polarization among citizens… we do not need help on ideological issues, and our state authorities act firmly in defense of our traditional values,” the statement reads. For many critics, the text published by the Church aims to divert attention from the statement made public a few days ago by the archbishop of Dmanisi, Zenon Iaradžuli, who had asked that the law not be approved because it could also harm some NGOs linked to the Church, creating the risk of an “institutional stigmatization of Georgian Orthodoxy.”

In particular, Zenon pointed out the danger of favoring extended positions “in the sovereign territories of Georgia occupied by Russia”, referring to Abkhazia and South Ossetia, touching on another sensitive point in Georgian politics. In an attempt to appease the warring parties, Bishop and Patriarchal Lieutenant Šjo Mudžuri called for “moving street clashes to the negotiating table, in order to find peaceful solutions”, but the path towards political conciliation, social and religious in Georgia still seems quite impassable.