Tbilisi, July 12, 2011
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| Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia |
The chairman of the legislature's human rights committee, Lasha Tordia, was invited to a meeting of the Holy Synod of the Orthodox Church on Monday, which discussed the law.
Metropolitan Serafim of Borjomi and Bakuriani said after the meeting that Tordia "assured us that the law does not pose any threat to the Georgian Orthodox Church."
The Synod urged the government and parliament not to make any similar decisions unilaterally because this would mean departing from an agreement between state and church and "certain insubmission."
"We expressed our grievance. We didn't damn or anathematize [them] but expressed our position that this is not how it should be. Now that the law has come into force and it can't be changed, the Synod urges the government to explain the main point to the people, that this law does not make the powers of the Georgian Orthodox Church and the powers of other religious currents in Georgia equal," the Metropolitan said.
He said the Georgian people were dissatisfied that the law had been passed behind the back of the Orthodox Church.
