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_WORLD WATCH______________________________
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Georgia
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A turbulent priest
Promoting violence against other faiths?
A fanatical priest of the Old Calendarist sect, who was already facing charges
for attacks on religious minorities in Georgia, led an arson raid on a Baptist
facility just two days before his scheduled court appearance, the Keston News
Service reported.
On February 3, Father Basil Mkalavishvili, who joined the Old Calendarists after being defrocked by the Georgian Orthodox Church in 1996, led a group of about 150 people who broke through locks and doors at a warehouse belonging to the Georgian Baptist Union. The group poured fuel over stacks of Bibles, then set them on fire.
Father Mkalavishvili was already facing a judicial hearing on February 5 as a result of a previous attack in which his followers destroyed stores of publications printed by Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Baptist Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili told Keston that the attack on the warehouse was part of Father Mkalavishvili’s “longstanding reign of terror” against religious minorities in Georgia. The Baptist leader also remarked that he had spoken with Georgian Orthodox Patriarch Ilya, who “encouraged us to sue Mkalavishvili.”
Two days later, the scheduled trial of the renegade priest was postponed—for the second time—because the cleric’s supporters packed the courtroom, intimidating officials. As Father Mkalavishvili’s trial was about to begin, an estimated 200 supporters crowded into the courtroom, disrupting the proceedings. “There was chaos in court,” one lawyer told Keston. “Our security was not guaranteed. I have never seen anything like it in my years as a lawyer.” Father Mkalavishvili reportedly said that if the third trial is postponed, he will refuse to appear for any subsequent court dates.