Archbishop Malkhaz from our CCN Partner in Georgia, the Baptist Peace Cathedral, visited his home country with a British delegation and an American group in January 2013. The Rt Revd Steffen Platten, Bishop of Wakefield, and Dr. Charles Reed, an analytical thinker at Church House, London were part of the British delegation. The group from the USA was led by Dr. Roy Medley, the Feneral Secretary of the American Baptist Churches in the USA. The group were especially interested in the interfaith work of the Peace Cathedral in Georgia.
The Archbishop, who is staying at the moment in Oxford, UK, reports from a noticeable encounter between the Christian visitors and local Muslims from the region of Ajara.
You can read parts of his reflections here:
“[…] Batumi is the capital city of the Autonomous Republic of Ajara. This part of Georgia used to be a part of the Ottoman Empire for three hundred years, and the majority of the population adopted the Muslim faith. Since the independence of Georgia the Muslims in the republic have experienced the imposition of the Orthodox Christian faith. Social and religious coercion have been used for the mission among Muslims. Reportedly churches and theological seminaries have been built in the villages and towns were there were no Orthodox Christians. Those who convert to Orthodox Christianity can count on various social and political benefits. The Prime Minister of the country, Zurab Zhvania, encouraged and attended mass baptisms organized by the local Orthodox clergy. Understandably this created tension between the Orthodox and Muslim populations of the country. Recently Ajarian eco-migrants were forbidden to pray together on Fridays in a house set aside for worship.
“We are Christians, and we do not want Muslims to worship in our village,” shouted a woman in video footage on the confrontation between the two communities.
“We have children to bring up in this village!” shouted another woman, as if the well-being of the children would be threatened if Muslims prayed in their prayer house on Friday!
We wanted to meet the Muslim leaders in the region and find out what was going on there.
It was late afternoon when we arrived in Batumi. The city is located in a bay in the foot hills of beautiful mountains. […] [The] government invested a lot of energy and resources in the city. It looks like a little Las Vegas - lots of new hotels, skyscrapers, casinos and restaurants. Reportedly the city attracts a lot of tourists from Caucasian countries, Azerbaijan and Armenia, Europe, Turkey, Iran, and even Israel.
All of us were welcomed by the Georgian Muslim Union leadership in front of the Radisson Hotel. But we did not stay at the hotel. We decided to express Christian solidarity with the Muslims of Ajara by staying in their homes. After dinner we were invited to the mosque, where we were warmly welcomed again. A short welcome speech was given from the ‘mihrab’ - a semi-circular niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the qibla, that is, the direction of the Kaaba - by the chairman of the Muslim Union, Zurab Tsetskhlaze. He used to be the Mufti of Ajara but decided to resign the post and devote his life to religious education. At the end of the meeting all of us - two British, 12 American and 9 Georgian Christians - were kindly invited to offer prayers in accordance with our tradition. I suggested the Christians spend some time in silent meditation and then asked Stephen [Bishop of Wakefield, UK] and Roy [Feneral Secretary of the American Baptist Churches, USA] to offer short prayers. We all sat quietly in the mosque and prayed for the healing of the wounds of history, for peace and for reconciliation.
After prayer in the courtyard of the mosque we were met by a group of Muslim hosts who took the Christian guests to their homes two by two. […]
Stephen [Bishop of Wakefield, UK], Charles [Dr. Charles Reed, an analytical thinker at Church House, London] and I were invited to Zurab Tsetskhladze’s [chairman of the Muslim Union] place. We were warmly welcomed by two children, Rashid and Rishad, who were in their early teens. A little table was laid with traditional Ajarian sweets and dry fruit. We had a long and lovely conversation over a cup of tea. As we discovered, Zurab was educated in Istanbul, Turkey. He came back to Batumi to become the Mufti of Ajara but then decided that it would be better to give all his energy to the education of the people. The Georgian Muslim Union headquarters is a place for learning and education. The place is very small but they manage to have seminars for different levels of Muslim society every day. He also told us that in Batumi, a city of 150,000 people, there is only one mosque, which is not enough for the number of faithful who need to carry out their religious duty by praying on Fridays in a mosque. We learned that the authorities will not allow them to build another mosque, while the Orthodox Church has built a couple of dozen churches in the city, and a number of properties have been given to it free of charge. Understandably Muslims feel discriminated against unfairly, and their religious feelings are hurt by Christians. With the direction of the Orthodox Church, crosses are being erected at virtually every street corner in the city to tell Muslims that this is not their city. During the Russian invasion of Georgia in 2008 Georgian Muslims fought bravely for the freedom of Georgia. A lot of them fell on the battlefield. The Muslims of Ajara were particularly hurt when the authorities erected crosses on the graves of the dead Muslim soldiers. The Orthodox Church made the Georgian Muslims hate the cross. I was sitting there in the home of a leader of the Muslim community in Georgia, and translating the sad narratives of religious oppression and humiliation of Muslims by Christians. I felt sick with embarrassment.
“Poor Jesus,” I thought, “we failed to understand his gospel of non-violence and acceptance! What we hear seems so similar to mediaeval suppression, yet it is happening here and now.”
Bishop Stephen and Charles also looked sad to hear all the stories of religious coercion and oppression. John Locke, a famous Oxford man and thinker wrote as early as in the 17th century that lack of religious toleration can be unchristian, citing the example of the Prince of Peace, Jesus, who did not resort to violence and coercion against those who did not follow him. According to him, ‘if the gospel and the apostles may be believed, no man can be a Christian without charity, and without that faith which works, not by force, but by love.” Following Locke’s logic we can see the structure of his argument: no-one can be a Christian unless they are charitable. Religious persecutors are not charitable, therefore religious persecutors are not true Christians. Locke hinted strongly at the hypocrisy of religious persecutors: they do not practice what they preach. Obviously, what Locke said of Christians, the same is applicable to any religion, because any religion by its nature is meant to help people to live in peace and harmony with fellow human beings. Sadly, we still need to learn how to live peacefully, not only in Ajara but everywhere.”
[…]
Archbishop Malkhaz Songulashvili
