Messenger.ge, Georgia

Friday, September 21 , 2007, #180 (1447)

Conservative MP wants a priest in every school
By Anna Kamushadze

An opposition lawmaker is proposing Georgian Orthodox priests be
dispatched to public schools, a plan which education officials say is
discriminatory and unwieldy.

Conservative MP Zviad Dzidziguri argues that putting a priest in every
school will help keep students orderly and moral. Most Georgians, he
says, welcome the idea, particularly in the wake of widely-publicized
juvenile violence. But Nodar Grigalashvili, head of the parliamentary
Committee for Education, Science, Culture and Sport, says the proposal
would discriminate against non-Orthodox students.

There is nothing discriminatory about bringing Orthodox priests into
school, Dzidziguri insisted.

`We have five crosses on our flag and St George on our coast of arms,
but no people of foreign origin and faith living in Georgia are
protesting,’ Dzidziguri told the Messenger.

It wouldn’t be compulsory, Dzidziguri clarified; he suggested that
parents’ committees or school principals could go to the Patriarchate
themselves to request a priest for their school. There aren’t actually
enough priests in the country for every school to get one, he added.

The proposal seems to be in reaction to what Dzidziguri says are
irreligious government officials chipping away at the role of the
Church in Georgian society.

`Icons and frankincense were taken out of schools, and children are
not allowed to pray. Before [Minister of Education Kakha] Lomaia,
priests went to schools,’ he says.

Grigalashvili, the education committee head, told journalists after a
committee hearing that the proposal would necessarily be either
discriminatory or a slippery slope.

`All students have the same rights, but after instituting this
proposal these rights [would be used]…in one classroom a mullah will
cry, an abbot will enter another classroom, in a third class a tertera
[Armenian Orthodox priest] would come, and an Orthodox priest will go
to another one. Imagine what will happen if we do this,’ Grigalashvili
said

Davit Lagvilava, principal of Public School No. 51, said he would
welcome more religious education in Georgia, but is cautious about
introducing priests into public schools.

`As for religious teaching in public schools, the issue needs to be
treated carefully. In my school, there are children with different
origins and different faiths… And what about Adjara [western
Georgian province bordering Turkey], where a large part of the
population is not Orthodox?’ Lagvilava asked.

The Conservative’s first draft law died in committee; they have not
yet announced whether they will continue to push the measure.