Law on religious units’ legal status in Georgia reveals discrepancies between State and Church

PanARMENIAN.Net - Adoption of the law on the legal status of religious units in Georgia demonstrated discrepancy between political State and Georgian Orthodox Church, according to Director of Caucasus Instutute Sergey Minasyan .

Authorities of Georgia took a rather complex political decision which refers to status of not only Armenian Apostolic Church but also other religious confessions in Georgia, Minasyan told a press conference in Yerevan.

“It is significant that the Georgian Orthodox Church is the second political actor in Georgia, and processes around adoption of this law raised to the surface serious discrepancies existing between Georgian Orthodox Church and political authorities which aggravated after passing the law on religious units’ legal status,” Minasyan said.

Amendments to Georgian Civil Code on granting the status of legal persons to religious units in Georgia have entered into force. According to the acting law, the Georgian President has 10 days to adopt a positive decision either veto it, or return it to the Parliament for corrections. Georgian parliament introduced amendments to Civil Code, granting the status of legal persons of public law to 5 religious units - Armenian Apostolic Church, Roman Catholic Church, the Muslim community, the Jewish community and the Baptist church in Georgia.

Law of Georgia defines a legal person of public law as an organization separated from the state bodies, created by the relevant law, enact of the President of Georgia or by the administrative act of state bodies, adopted on the basis of law, which conducts political, state, social, educational, cultural and other public activities. The issue of Armenian Apostolic Church status is in the agenda of the Armenian-Georgian relations. Within the visit of His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians to Georgia, the Georgian side offered to provide Georgian Orthodox Church in Armenia the same rights as the Armenian Apostolic Church has in Georgia.

“This law is both significant and dangerous. The legislators must think of consequences the law may have in some ten, hundred years. We lack analytical thinking. Analysis is made before action and not after that,” said the Catholicos Ilia II.