RELIGION AND CONFLICT POTENTIAL IN GEORGIA

Gulbaat RTSKHILADZE

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Gulbaat Rtskhiladze, D.Sc. (Political Science), associate of the Projekt-Planung German Analytical Center (Tbilisi, Georgia)

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Religion rarely breeds global conflicts, yet on many occasions it deepens them. Potentially, it can also smooth over conflict situations. This is the way to approach Georgia’s conflict potential generated by the religious factor: we must identify the role of religion in the present confrontations (including the ethnic ones). We must analyze the role the outside world plays in this context and the degree to which the religious factor affects Georgia’s relations with the rest of the world.

A Glimpse into the Past

Throughout history, religion in Georgia has almost always been closely connected with the state. The heyday of Georgian church architecture, monasteries, and theological thought fell during the 9th-10th centuries. It directly predated the heyday of the Georgian state under David IV and Queen Tamar in the 12th-13th centuries. Georgia did not know religious strife: the witch-hunting, extermination of those who belonged to other confessions, persecution of the Jews, and so on, typical of medieval Western Europe and Russia were unknown in Georgia. In the 7th century when Christian Orthodoxy finally triumphed, there were no heresies or dissent in the Georgian Christian Orthodox Church (GOC): all conflicts were timely defused. All political figures, David the Builder among them, paid a lot of attention to developments in the religious sphere and church life, and sought support from the…………..

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