WAITING THE UPCOMING HIGH LEVEL NEGOTIATIONS

AZG Armenian Daily #051, 23/03/2005

Press release

In early April, a delegation from Armenia comprising Archbishop Pargev
Martirosyan, Head of the Armenian Diocese in Nagorno-Karabakh and
member of the ecclesiastic counsel, Bishop Yeznik and Professor Rafael
Papyan, in charge of the department of inter-confessional relations,
will travel to Georgia to discuss the problems connected to Norashen –
and not only those.

At the end of the 19th century, Tbilisi counted 29 active Armenian
Churches, today a mere two are left. Eight Armenian Churches have
undergone appropriation efforts and were turned into Georgian ones,
in addition thereto frescos, khachkars and all Armenian references
have systematically been destroyed. The fate of five churches,
including Norashen, currently lies in the hands of the Georgian
Patriarchate. And this is just in Tbilisi. The destruction and
appropriation process of the Armenian spiritual and ecclesiastical
heritage continues throughout Georgia. Many historians already refer
to it as the genocide of the Armenian cultural heritage in Georgia.

The Armenian delegation furthermore intends to discuss the status of
the Armenian Diocese in Georgia, an unresolved problem which affects
not the Armenian Church alone, as the only religious group included
in the Georgian legislative framework today, is the Georgian Orthodox
Church.

A draft law is apparently in the making which will enable religious
groups to register as legal persons of private law. However, the
Armenian Apostolic Church can look back on a centuries old historical
presence in Georgia, and declares that it has no intention of
registering as a person of private law, since the Church, in essence,
is of societal nature.

The Armenian Diocese in Georgia hopes that the upcoming negotiations
will settle the outstanding problems, including the one connected to
Norashen, the appropriation of which continues as of now, despite
counter-declarations that the resolution of the question would be
left to be dealt with on the highest level.

Today, construction works of a new wall around the Armenian Church
Norashen were undertaken under the supervision of Georgian priest,
Father Tariel (the same who destroyed in 1994 Armenian khachkars and
frescoes of the 19th century from the Hovnatanyan school and whose
actions were labeled by the Georgian patriarch Iliad II as “his own”,
while in turn Father Tariel cites orders from above). And all this
only a mere hundred meters away from the administrative building of
the Georgian Orthodox Church’s Patriarchate.

After the meeting, the representatives of the Armenian clergy will
hold a press conference, the details of which will be announced at
a later time.

Armenian Diocese of Georgia