Parliament Speaker slams opposition’s “coordinated attacks on Orthodox Church” as attempts to “demean values”, harm country, Gov’t
Papuashvili claimed the ruling party “does embrace the values” of the Church but the Government “is strictly separated from it”. Photo: Shalva Papuashvili Facebook
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Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Tuesday slammed an alleged “coordinated campaign” by the “radical wing” of the domestic opposition against the Christian Orthodox Church of the country, which he claimed was aimed at “demeaning” the “symbols and values around which Georgians have rallied historically”.
The official, whose comment came following a controversy around the image featuring Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin on an icon of Russian Saint Matrona, donated to the Tbilisi Holy Trinity Cathedral by members of a political party, and around the date Georgia celebrates Christmas, also stressed the “real purpose” of the “slanderous campaign” was to “damage the Church, the Government, and, with them, undermine our joint historic endeavour”.
This hostile rhetoric also implies that national and religious values cannot co-exist with Western, European values. However, the truth is that the two are mutually fulfilling, and even reinforcing”, he stressed.
In details over the icon donated by the Alliance of Patriots domestic opposition group to the Cathedral, Papuashvili noted Giorgi Kandelaki, a former official under the United National Movement Government, had published a video on his social media account on the Christmas eve, alleging he had found an “icon of Stalin” in the church.
Georgia’s radical opposition has recently undertaken yet another attack against the incumbent Georgian Dream, through vilifying the Georgian Orthodox Church, accusing us of mythical ‘pro-Russian’ stand. While this futile ‘Russian’ argument is getting so exhausted that even our… pic.twitter.com/nCJky8rE4m
— Shalva Papuashvili ???????? (@shpapuashvili) January 16, 2024
Papuashvili highlighted the icon featured a “small insert into the icon of St Matrona, depicting the latter’s supposed conversation with Stalin during World War II”, with the Orthodox Church deciding earlier this month to change this particular detail “not because the depiction of a tyrant was uncanonical, but because the fact of the above mentioned conversation was, most likely, untrue”.
He claimed a parallel line of an alleged attack on the Church aimed at compromising the date of celebrating Christmas on January 7 - instead of December 25 - and calling the celebrations “the Russian Christmas”.
However, the reality is that celebrating Christmas by the Julian calendar is an inherently Georgian tradition, having nothing to do with either Russia or the Russian Church”, Papuashvili added.
He alleged the controversies had been taken up by the “radicals” to also “viciously attack” Ilia II, the Catholicos-Patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church, whom he labelled as the country's “most venerated and authoritative public figure by general acclaim and according to any public opinion poll”.
In their hostile campaign, the opposition and their affiliated talking heads linked the Patriarch, the Church, and the Government with Russia”, Papuashvili noted, rejecting them as “absurd”, “pointless” and “counter-productive”.
Describing the Georgian Church as “one of the oldest in the world” and an institution he said had “heroically resisted the overwhelming and violent onslaught by the Bolshevik and then Communist totalitarianism”, Papuashvili called it the “only national institution that refuses to get involved in political polarisation” and “always listens to people”.
He claimed the ruling party “does embrace the values” of the Church but the Government “is strictly separated from it”.