Anti-Baptist Village Mobs in Georgia

(Forum 18) – The governor of Gurjaani district, Akaki Tsikharulidze, has denied to Forum 18 News Service that he was, according to local Baptists, among officials who “agitated” against an independent Baptist congregation, “stirring up hostility” and encouraging a mob of up to 600 villagers to halt the building of a home for Baptist deacon Zurab Khutsishvili in the village of Velitsikhe . Attacks on a Baptist congregation in another part of Georgia have continued, and no religious minority – such as Pentecostals, True Orthodox, Evangelical-Baptists and Catholics – believes that they can openly build places of worship. Pentecostal Pastor Nikolai Kalutsky told Forum 18 that “Until religious minorities gain legal status this will not change.” Baptist Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili commented on the prospects for building non-Orthodox places of worship that “without a law on religion, local authorities could easily say no – but by the same token they could also say yes. It depends on local circumstances.”