_WORLD WATCH______________________________
____________________ Georgia ________________

Parish thwarted in plans to build
Lingering disputes on confiscated property
Catholic authorities in the former Soviet republic of Georgia are being frustrated in their efforts to build parish churches because of the opposition of the Orthodox Church, the Keston News Service has reported.

Georgi Tskhomelidze, secretary to the head of the Apostolic Administration of the Caucasus, Bishop Giuseppe Pasotto, told Keston that the Catholic parish of over 250 members in the western town of Kutaisi is currently unable to build a church in the city. Although the parish has purchased private land for this purpose, said Tskhomelidze, the Kutaisi authorities told them informally earlier this year that since the local Orthodox bishop is opposed to the construction of the church, it cannot go ahead. “Bishop Giuseppe intends to take the matter to court,” Tskhomelidze told Keston.

In the southern town of Akhaltsikhe, said Tskhomelidze, the local authorities are likewise obstructing construction of a Catholic church upon land purchased by the city’s 150-strong parish. In a letter to Bishop Pasotto the mayor’s office explained that “all questions relating to the construction of churches must be agreed with the Georgian Patriarchate.”

Elsewhere in Georgia, the Catholic Church has been trying to recover those of her church buildings which were confiscated by the Soviet authorities. In Kutaisi, Gori, Batumi, Ude, and Ivlita, former Catholic church buildings were handed over to the Orthodox Church during the period 1989-90. When the Catholic Church asked for their return during informal discussions with representatives of the Georgian Orthodox Church, a formal bilateral commission was set up to examine the issue.

However, that commission decided not to return the Catholic parish properties. Archpriest Levan Pirtskhalaishvili, secretary to Patriarch Ilya II of Georgia, argued that the buildings had been given to the Orthodox Church by legal authorities, and then consecrated to the use of the Orthodox Church. Under the canon law of the Orthodox body, he said, these churches were now official Orthodox parishes, and could not be “given away.”

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