New Movement Set up to ‘Lobby’ Orthodox Church

Reports say Giorgi Andriadze, who resigned from his post of the Georgian Orthodox Church’s parliamentary secretary last week, announced plans to set up a public movement National Lobby.

The movement aims, as Andriadze put it, at protection of the “Orthodox Church and Georgian national values.”

He said some non-governmental organizations, including the human rights advocacy Liberty Institute, as well as one group of priests, are undermining Orthodox Church.

Recently, the situation in the Georgian Orthodox Church has become one of the top issues being widely discussed by media and society, after a small group of liberal priests, led by Dean Basil Kobakhidze voiced their criticism towards the officials of the Church, accusing them of corruption and mismanagement.

Kobakhidze says the current leadership of the Georgian Orthodox Church is “absorbed by fanaticism” which isolates the Orthodox Church and increases the gap between it and the rest of the world.

The Holy Synod, the main governing body of the Georgian Orthodox Church, which held a session on December 14, called on the media and politicians to refrain from meddling in the Church’s internal affairs. The Holy Synod also ruled to ban Basil Kobakhidze from conducting services.

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