Vatican’s Foreign Minister in Georgia to Sign Controversial Agreement

Monsignor Jean Louis Tauran, the Vatican’s Foreign Minister, arrived in Tbilisi today to sign an agreement with the Georgian government.

Details of the agreement remain confidential, causing Georgian Orthodox Church’s protest.

“We do not know details of this document. We signed a Concordat with the Georgian state [in 2002] and people new details of this document; it was publicly discussed for many times. This agreement will cause serious problems for the Georgian government,” Patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church Ilia II said at a news briefing on September 18.

Last October, President Shevardnadze and the Patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church, Ilia II, signed a Concordat concretizing the church’s relationship with the state. The Concordat gives the Orthodox Church important privileges compared with other religious groups in Georgia.

The Orthodox Church fears that the agreement with the Vatican would threaten its exclusive rights in Georgia.

On September 17 Deputy Foreign Minister of Georgia Kakha Sikharulidze refrained from commenting on the details of the agreement with the Vatican saying, “the agreement implies the cooperation between the two states and does not infringe the interests of the Georgian Orthodox Church.”