Calls for Church defunding made in Georgia

Leaders of the opposition Republican Party of Georgia have appealed to the government today, requesting to cut off funding to the Georgian Patriarchate, as well as calling on both, the Church and the government, to stop interfering into each other’s matters.

Since conclusion of the Concordat between the state and the Georgian Orthodox Church in 2002, the Patriarchate of Georgia has been allocated GEL200mln. (approximately US$76mln. at the current exchange rate) anstate funding, as a formal compensation for the losses incurred to the Church in Soviet times. 

Under the 2017 state budget, Georgian Patriarchate will be provided GEL25million (approximately USD 9,5mln.). The same amount was allocated to the Church last year. According to the budget, the bigger portion of the sum allotted to the Church in 2017 will be spent on promotion of ecclesiastical education. The Patriarchate is not bound to account for its expenses. Neither is this process controlled by any public agency.

The practice of church funding, introduced back in Shevardnadze’s times, was continued from 2003 by Mikhail Saakashvili-led new government, and later, since 2012, by the Georgian Dream government. Both, the government officials and the opposition politicians, avoided to openly discuss this issue. Up to now, none of the political parties have raised the issue of cutting off state funding to the Patriarchate.

“Why should the Georgian population pay such a compensation? Maybe there is someone either from the clergy or the government,who can substantiate it?” Tamar Kordzaia, a political secretary of the Republican Party, stated at the news conference on Wednesday, February 15.

In her words, the given practice raised discontent in the Patriarchate as well and the letter written by the recently arrested Archdeacon, Giorgi Mamaladze, testified to that.

As Giorgi Mamaladze, the Deputy Head of the Patriarchate’s assets management department, pointed out in his letter, which fell into mass media’s hands, he wanted to notify Georgian Patriarch, Ilia II on the financial violations in the Patriarchate.

Reverent Giorgi Mamaladze was arrested at Tbilisi International Airport on February 10. He was charged with plotting ‘high-ranking cleric murder’. The investigation didn’t disclose the case details. However, according to some media reports, he was charged with  the Patriarch’s murder attempt. Mamaladze himself pleads not guilty.

After Mamaladze’s arrest, other clergymen have also started openly discussing financial violations in the Patriarchate.