Interfax
March 30, 2001

The Georgian parliament at a plenary session on Friday passed a bill on entering amendments in the national constitution giving the Orthodox Church a special role to play in society. In accordance with the endorsed amendments, the Church is independent from the state and deals with it on the basis of an appropriate accord.

The Georgian president's parliamentary secretary Dzhony Khetsuriani has said the amendments do not mean that Orthodox Christianity has been declared a national religion in Georgia even though lots of countries, European among them, could be cited on this score.

He said the amendments concerning the Georgian Orthodox Church's status do not infringe on human rights in the country in any way and meet all international provisions and norms in the field of human rights and freedoms.

Once this bill had been passed, the parliament began to debate the issue of religious extremism, which has become an embarrassing problem for Georgia in recent time. This concerns unlawful actions by priest Vasil Mklavishvili excommunicated from the Georgian Orthodox Church and about 1,000 of his followers, regularly raiding the congregations of Jehovah's Witnesses, Baptists, Evangelists, and other believers.

The parliament adopted a ruling condemning the manifestations of any religious violence and instructed the law enforcement agencies to apply the strictest measures to religious extremists.

Meanwhile, as the parliament debated the religious extremism issue, Mklavishvili was summoned to the prosecutor's office in Tbilisi for questioning on Friday. He was charged on seven concrete facts of beating sect members and burning their literature in public. Until now, Georgian police and the prosecutor's office had turned a blind eye to actions by the former clergyman and his followers, which have been going on for almost two years.

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