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Georgia - Religion

The country has an area of 25,900 square miles and a population of 4.6 million, including the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which are not under the control of the Government. There are strong correlations between ethnic group, religious affiliation, and often, geographic area.

The wide variety of peoples inhabiting Georgia has meant a correspondingly rich array of active religions. The dominant religion is Christianity, and the Georgian Orthodox Church is by far the largest church. The conversion of the Georgians in A.D. 330 placed them among the first peoples to accept Christianity. According to tradition, a holy slave woman, who became known as Saint Nino, cured Queen Nana of Iberia of an unknown illness, and King Marian III accepted Christianity when a second miracle occurred during a royal hunting trip. The Georgians' new faith, which replaced Greek pagan and Zoroastrian beliefs, was to place them permanently on the front line of conflict between the Islamic and Christian worlds. As was true elsewhere, the Christian church in Georgia was crucial to the development of a written language, and most of the earliest written works were religious texts.

In the last centuries of the pre-Christian era, Georgia, in the form of the kingdom of Kartli-Iberia, was strongly influenced by Greece to the west and Persia to the east. After the Roman Empire completed its conquest of the Caucasus region in 66 B.C., the kingdom was a Roman client state and ally for some 400 years. In A.D. 330, King Marian III's acceptance of Christianity ultimately tied Georgia to the neighboring Byzantine Empire, which exerted a strong cultural influence for several centuries. Although Arabs captured the capital city of Tbilisi in A.D. 645, Kartli-Iberia retained considerable independence under local Arab rulers. In A.D. 813, the Armenian prince Ashot I became the first of the Bagrationi family to rule Georgia. Ashot's reign began a period of nearly 1,000 years during which the Bagratids, as the house was known, ruled at least part of what is now Georgia.

Western and eastern Georgia were united under Bagrat V (r. 1027-72). In the next century, David IV (called the Builder, r. 1099-1125) initiated the Georgian golden age by driving the Turks from the country and expanding Georgian cultural and political influence southward into Armenia and eastward to the Caspian Sea. That era of unparalleled power and prestige for the Georgian monarchy concluded with the great literary flowering of Queen Tamar's reign (1184-1212). At the end of that period, Georgia was well known in the Christian West (and relied upon as an ally by the Crusaders). Outside the national boundaries, several provinces were dependent to some degree on Georgian power: the Trabzon Empire on the southern shore of the Black Sea, regions in the Caucasus to the north and east, and southern Azerbaijan.

After Georgia was annexed by the Russian Empire, the Russian Orthodox Church took over the Georgian church in 1811. The colorful frescoes and wall paintings typical of Georgian cathedrals were whitewashed by the Russian occupiers. The various national Churches of Iberia, Mingrelia, and Imerethia no longer exist since Russia has extended her dominion over the Caucasus provinces. In the Liturgy the Georgian tongue was replaced by the Slavonic. The number of dioceses was formerly twenty, but by 1900 was only four, all in the hands of the Russians. It had a metropolitan, with the title of Exarch of Georgia and three suffragan bishops. The number of the Orthodox in Georgia, including the Russian colonists, was reckoned in 1900 at about 1,600,000.

The Georgian church regained its autonomy only when Russian rule ended in 1918. Neither the Georgian Menshevik government nor the Bolshevik regime that followed considered revitalization of the Georgian church an important goal, however. Soviet rule brought severe purges of the Georgian church hierarchy and constant repression of Orthodox worship. As elsewhere in the Soviet Union, many churches were destroyed or converted into secular buildings. This history of repression encouraged the incorporation of religious identity into the strong nationalist movement in twentieth-century Georgia and the quest of Georgians for religious expression outside the official, governmentcontrolled church.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, opposition leaders, especially Zviad Gamsakhurdia, criticized corruption in the church hierarchy. When Ilia II became the patriarch (catholicos) of the Georgian Orthodox Church in the late 1970s, he brought order and a new morality to church affairs, and Georgian Orthodoxy experienced a revival. In 1988 Moscow permitted the patriarch to begin consecrating and reopening closed churches, and a large-scale restoration process began. In 1993 some 65 percent of Georgians were Georgian Orthodox, 11 percent were Muslim, 10 percent Russian Orthodox, and 8 percent Armenian Apostolic.

Most ethnic Georgians (84 percent of the population, according to the 2002 census) associate themselves with the Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC). Orthodox Christians who are not Georgian accept the territorial jurisdiction of the GOC and generally use the primary language of their communicants (e.g., Russian, Armenian, or Greek). There remain a small number of mostly ethnic Russian adherents of three dissident Orthodox schools: the Molokani, Staroveriy (Old Believers), and Dukhoboriy (Spirit Wrestlers). The existence of radical Georgian Orthodox groups such as David the Builder and Orthodox Parents is recognized, but according to the Patriarchy, they are in no way associated with the GOC.

The Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC), the Roman Catholic Church (RCC), Judaism, and Islam have coexisted with Georgian Orthodoxy for centuries. Azeris comprise the second largest ethnic group (approximately 285,000, or 7 percent of the population) and are largely Muslim; most live in the southeastern region of Kvemo-Kartli, where they constitute a majority. Other Muslim groups include the ethnic Georgian Muslims of Ajara and Chechen Kists in the northeastern region, bringing the Muslims up to 10 percent of the population. Armenians are the third largest ethnic group (estimated at 249,000, or 6 percent of the population) and belong predominantly to the AAC; they constitute the majority of the population in the southern Samtskhe-Javakheti region.

There are an estimated 35,000 Catholics, largely ethnic Georgians or Assyrians, and 18,000 Kurdish Yezidis. The ethnic Greek Orthodox community numbers 15,000. There are an estimated 10,000 Jews. Protestant and other nontraditional denominations such as Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Krishnas have become more active and prominent. Each of these groups represents less than 1 percent of the population.

The RCC, AAC, and several Protestant denominations continued to have difficulty obtaining permission to construct new churches, due to the reluctance of local authorities to issue building permits that could antagonize local GOC officials. During the reporting period, authorities referred the RCC to a local GOC bishop for permission to build a new church. The GOC bishop suggested that the RCC repair an old church instead, and that suggestion was accepted by local government. Muslims in Adjara also were unsuccessful in regaining their pre-Soviet era properties.

At school, staff will assume a child is Orthodox Christian unless they are made aware otherwise, which can then be the source of difficulty at school. For this reason, Roman Catholics, Baptists, and Krishnas all remarked that parents found the school environment better for their children if their household did not announce its religious affiliations in its community. Roman Catholics noted that teachers said that children who make the sign of the cross in school in the orthodox manner are "making the sign of God," while children who make the sign of the cross in the Roman Catholic manner are "making the sign of the devil."

The Pankisi Valley Region has a history of jihadist activity and remains geographically isolated from the rest of the country, making it difficult for the Georgian government to control and influence. In the 1990s and early 2000s, Russia’s wars against Chechen separatists led to the establishment of Pankisi as a sanctuary for thousands of refugees.

Chechen, Arab and allegedly al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters used the area to launch insurgent strikes into Russian territory. In 2002 and 2004, Georgian security forces largely cleared the area of militants and criminal networks; however, the inflow of foreign fighters over the years left a lasting impact on the area and a Wahhabi influence over a traditionally Kist population.

The number one problem is the extremely powerful ideological propaganda coming from Daesh. Aside from small trade and meager land cultivation, there are few promising life choices available in the valley. However, poverty alone is not enough to cause radicalization.

The prospect of a mercenary lifestyle is not hard for these young men to envision. For example, many young Pankisi men know the story of Tarkhan Batirashvili — a well-known Georgian jihadist who rose to be one of the leading commanders in Daesh. His rumored wealth and reputation have not helped to dissuade them from this path.

Daesh has established a massive, solid media network for online recruitment to capture the minds of those vulnerable to radicalization. There were a number of former Pankisi residents communicating online straight from the battlefields of Iraq and Syria. This has created a sense of admiration and pride among the youth, who view their former neighbors and friends fighting in Syria and Iraq as opportunists who were able to escape the dull life of the valley for a second chance at adventure, wealth and fame.