A conference called “The Armenian Community in Tbilisi: Problems and Prospects” began early this week in Tbilisi and ended in a scandal.<\/p>\n
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The reason? A statement by Georgia’s Commission for Human Rights and Civic Integration Deputy Chair Elena Tevdoradze.<\/p>\n
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“In Georgia, we will never give official status to the Etchmiadzin church since the Armenian Apostolic Church which exists in our country is a so-called branch. I repeat, we will not recognize Etchmiadzin church in Georgia,” she said and left the room, reports Azatutyun Radio (RFE\/RL Armenia branch).<\/p>\n
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This statement by Tevdoradze preceeded her dispute with the Vatican’s Ambassador to Georgia, Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti. <\/p>\n
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“Nowhere in the world have we come across such practice, when the state suggests to a traditional church to register as a club or non-governmental organization,” said the Catholic priest.<\/p>\n
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Also present during the discussion was head of the council on public education of Armenians of Tbilisi David Manusajev, who said: “Tevdoradze’s objections were absolutely meaningless, they weren’t organized. The Vatican’s Ambassador was forced to say to her, ‘you are protesting just to protest, without delving into the crux of the matter’.”<\/p>\n
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Neither the Armenian Apostolic Church nor the Catholic Church are officially registered in Georgia because the state refuses to give them the status of a religious institution, instead offering they register as NGOs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Georgia’s Commission for Human Rights and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10,5],"tags":[18821,18819,18820,18822,18823,18824,18818,12193,18057],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49160"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}