RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH RESPECTS EXTENDING JURISDICTIONAL RIGHTS OF GEORGIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH
Regnum, Russia
July 5 2006
On July 4, His Holiness Patriarch Alexiy II of Moscow and All Russia
met with His Holiness and Beatitude Iliya II, Catholicos-Patriarch
of All Georgia at the World Summit of Religious Leaders. As Russian
Orthodox Church official web site informs, different aspects of
relations between the two Manorial Orthodox Churches were discussed.
In particular, His Holiness Patriarch Alexiy stressed that the Russian
Orthodox Church respects jurisdictional rights of Georgian Orthodox
Church in the whole space of its canonical territory and it committed
to observing canonical norms in inter-Orthodox relations.
"We have come to Moscow with love in order to express once more our
good feelings towards the Russian Orthodox Church," the head of the
Georgian Patriarchy said and invited His Holiness Patriarch Alexiy
to visit Georgia again at any convenient time.
It is worth mentioning that Georgian Holy Synod decided on February
6 to restore "one of its historical eparchies" in Armenian territory.
The Holy Synod enacted: "To restore historically existed Agarak-Tashira
Eparchy and to subordinate it to Dmanisi bishop whose title should be
defined in the following way: Bishop of Dmanisi and Agarak-Tashira,
Dmanisi pulpit." In this connection, Council of Armenian Apostolic
Church stated that the new Georgian Eparchy "has been established
in the northern region of Armenia" in places "where the GOC does not
have believers." Meanwhile, "the fair right of hundreds of thousands
of faithful Armenians to receive back churches of Armenian Eparchy is
ignored" in Georgia, the council’s members stressed. It is ascertained
in the statement of the AAC Council that Armenian bishops had not
received yet a satisfactory response to their appeal to the Georgian
state authorities concerning granting to the Armenian Eparchy status
of non-governmental organization and returning to it 6 historical
Armenian temples.