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New Lady Minister at the Cathedral Baptist Church
On February 8th a new female minister was ordained at the Cathedral Baptist. The ordinand was wholeheartedly welcomed by the congregation of the Cathedral Church.
Mrs. Elene Kobakhidze has been a very active member of the Church for a number of years. She has been active in the social ministry of the Church and instrumental in rescuing young ladies from the trap of prostitution.
She has worked for the State Chancellery and had a chance of sharing some passages of Holy Scriptures with the former president Edward Shevardnadze when he was still in office.
She came to the Church after World War II when the Baptist church just reopened after several years of Stalinist persecution. She remembers the time when there were only 10 Georgian believers in the church.
“I never thought I would become a minister. In my youth the church was very legalistic. There was an unwritten code that used to deprive women to be involved in ordained ministry. Things have changed now. Owing to the reforms in our church people are not afraid to enter the Baptist Church any longer. I wish it would have been the case earlier.” says Elene Kobakhidze, newly ordained female minister.
Lenten Challenges
Lenten period is a very special time in the life of the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia. This year all ordained ministers of the Church came to the Cathedral Church in Tbilisi to be part of the Ash Wednesday Service. The service marked the beginning of Lent 2004.
This year each week of the Lent is dedicated to certain themes; for instance, Poverty and Children, Women and Emancipation, Sick and Destitute, Mourning and Grieving, Ecology and Environment.
Believers are encouraged to get engaged in the projects that are made available in accordance with the Lenten themes. They visit and help the poor, children and women who have been trapped in prostitution. They clean contaminated places in the capital city of Tbilisi; organize meetings and conferences about the themes of their concern.
On Sunday services the participants of the various projects report to their congregations about their achievements during the week.
Mrs. Ala Kavtaradze has reported about >> Projects and Ministries for Children. << Due to the economical hardship a lot of children end up in orphanages simply because their parents can not afford to take care of them. The orphanages are not terribly good places, but they provide food and shelter for children. “Most of everything they need love and warmth of human hearts,” reported Ala Kavtaradze. “Before going to one of the orphanages in Akhalakalaki we telephoned children from Tbilisi and asked them what they wanted us to bring with us for them. They told us: “Please do come to us, we do not want anything else.” Ala and her team had been working with that orphanage already for some years.
The Women’s Department of the EBC organized a >> Week of Women <<. They held a conference at the Cathedral Baptist Church devoted to the problematic issues women of Georgia are concerned about. Amongst the participants there were wives of Georgian Orthodox priests and representatives of various NGO’s. “We had a very good time together”, says one of the organizers of the conference, “the guests were surprised to learn about the activities of Baptist women of Georgia. The decision was made to organize an Ecumenical cooperation of Women for the benefit of the people of Georgia.”
The organizers of the >> Week of the Mourning << reported about their meeting with those who had lost beloved ones. “We as a church have to address their pain and suffering,” reported Mrs. Mzia Gotziridze. ”Those people bear in their hearts unspeakable pains. The Orthodox Church has so much to offer to those who mourn. Why should we not learn more from them about their experiences!?”
Lenten Period does provoke a lot of thinking among the faithful which helps them to meditate on the mission of the Church in Georgia.
Bishop’s Failure to See Prostitutes Inspires Baptist Women
One of the Lenten events that proved to be successful was a visitation of the women who have been trapped in the business of prostitution. An organizer of the visitation, Mrs. Rusudan Gotziridze was asked by a journalist how they had decided to visit prostitutes on the streets of Tbilisi. This is what she told mass media people: “In the year 2000 on Christmas eve our Bishop decided to go to the streets of Tbilisi and announce the message of Christmas to the women trapped in prostitution. He bought 20 beautiful roses and went to the places where prostitutes usually wait for their clients. Alas, it was a very could day and there were no prostitutes standing. Next day during the Christmas vigil the Baptist Bishop announced that his first attempt to meet the prostitutes had failed. We wanted to do the very thing the Bishop had failed to do. We wanted to tell the women that the Lord loves them.”
That day children delivered roses to prostitutes in a kind of “red line” of Tbilisi. “They were so grateful to us” reported 10 years old Tamuna Gigauri. It was very difficult for me to overcome myself and go to the prostitutes along with my children to show the love of God. I was not prepares emotionally to have lengthy conversation with them but I managed to go there and that’s most important” says Mzia Gigauri little Tamuna’s mother.
Does Lenten Fasting liberate an Individual only from Soap Operas?
Every Thursday during the Lenten period members of the Cathedral Baptist Church and other local congregations start fasting for one day. The fasting is finished on Friday evening with Eucharist and contemplative prayers.
People love the Friday Eucharist which are the most contemplative services in the liturgical calendar of Georgian Baptists. Hundreds of people attend the service every week. These kinds of services seem to be closer to the Georgian heart.
“The fast and the Eucharist strengthen us. We are very happy to have the Friday services,” comments Mrs.Elena Kobakhidze the recently ordained minister of the Cathedral Baptist Church.
Mrs. Rusudan Gotziridze, leader of the women’s work says: „It is the first time that I started fasting in Lenten time. The fasting helps me to discipline myself in daily life and work. It affects your mood. You start thinking in a different way, you are reasoning in a different way. I stopped watching TV except news; I have stopped watching soap operas. I am not interested in them any longer. As to Friday’s Eucharist: I have not participated in the Eucharist with such a mood before. When you fast during the Lenten period the mood is absolutely different.”
15 years old Alexander Kavtaradze was baptized in the year 2003 during the Easter vigil. “Lenten period is a kind of journey you take. The journey which takes you to the resurrection”, says Alexander. „It’s a time to overcome difficulties and to reach the culmination. My experience is that a lot of problems arise in this period, both personal and communal.”
Alexander is right. The Lenten period has been quite difficult for Georgia’s Baptists for the last few years. Yet every Lent ends up in the joyful feast of Easter.
The tradition of Lenten fast and contemplative prayer has been rediscovered by Georgian Baptists and proved to be a powerful experience for the Church. Believers are encouraged to observe the Lenten period with different kinds of fasting, Bible studies, prayer, Eucharist.
The Eucharist in the Cathedral Church is usually celebrated by the Presiding Bishop of the Church being assisted by one male and one female minister. In the service there are only liturgy, scripture reading, reflection, prayers, silence and Eucharist being celebrated after the pattern of John Chrisostomos. As to the music: traditional Georgian and Taizé songs are being used.
Renegade Orthodox Priest threatens Saakashvili
On March 11th the renegade Orthodox priest Basil Mkalavishvili, who had been in hiding for four months, tried to hold a press conference in the Public Defender’s office in Tbilisi.
This was the reaction to the letter of the American congressmen to President Saakashvili, in which they reminded the President that the world expects him to prosecute religious extremists in Georgia.
“As you know, the court case against Basil Mkalavishvili has been delayed and postponed many times since January 2003. He is currently reported to be in hiding, yet media outlets never seem to have any difficulty finding him.” wrote American congressmen. The court case the congressmen are referring to is the case of burning of Bibles belonging to the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia.
Basil Mkalavishvili realized that that he might go to jail after this letter was published by mass media, therefore he decided to attack President Saakashvili before he has him arrested. He was not allowed to have his press conference in the Public Defender’s office. So he had the press conference in front of the building being accompanied by his supporters. “I am determined to continue my activities in my usual manner. But this time I will start with President Saakashvili” said the defrocked Priest. He was not explicit as to how is he going to fight against President Saakashvili. The “usual manner” of the renegade priest is: burning Bibles and religious literature, beating up people, children, women and clergymen of non Orthodox background, shaving heads of people in the name of Most Holy Trinity, wrecking Ecumenical prayer services, attacking religious minorities.
In the evening of the same day President Saakashvili declared at the press conference that the priest had received money from Batumi to organize violence in Tbilisi. “There aim is to detect the attention of the government from the Ajarian problem.” said the Georgian President.
The Arrest the World had been Waiting For
“In the morning of March 12th when I was driving to my office at 7:45 an escort of black jeeps passed by on the Military Highway” says Bishop Songulashvili “I realized it was the escort of the Minister of the Interior. I wondered where they were coming from that early. The next moment I got a message from one of my colleagues by sms messenger on my mobile phone. The message was saying: ‘Mkalavishvili is arrested.’ Well done Gia I said, (Gia is Minister interior’s first name), but than I got a little bit embarrassed that I was glad about the arrest of the Orthodox clergyman.”
The arrest took place in the morning of March 12. The police stormed Mkalavishvili's church in the Gldani district of Tbilisi where he and his supporters had barricaded themselves. More than a hundred policemen destroyed its door with a lorry. Mkalavishvili and seven others were seized. The press representative of Mkalavishvili's Gldani diocese was arrested the following day.
Mkalavishvili was immediately taken into three-month pre-trial detention in line with a court order of June 2003 (under the former President Edward Shevardnadze the police failed to detain him in accordance with the order, despite his whereabouts in Tbilisi were widely known).
At a closed hearing on 14 March the Vake-Saburtalo district court ordered that seven Mkalavishvili associates be held in pre-trial detention for three months
The Georgian Orthodox Church made a strange statement about the arrest. The statement sounded like an ultimatum:
“If the attempts to stop the violence is limited only with the arrest of Mkalavishvili and do not develop into stopping violent proselytism of Jehovah’s Witnesses, which is the source of the violence, than it will be clear that by this [arrest] criminal activities of Jehovah’s Witnesses will be given green light.”
This is what it says and this is how it should be interpreted:
You have arrested Mkalavishvil but now you have to do yourself what Mkalavishvili has been arrested for. This is a call to the authorities to persecute religious minorities.
We will see whether the priest and his associates are convicted fairly.
What can you do when a Bishop does not believe that anybody can see?
After the arrest of the renegade priest Basil Mkalavishvili his Old Calendarist Bishop
Ambrose in Greece, who oversees Mkalavishvili, complained to Forum 18 of the police's "violent incursion" into the church and what he called the "large-scale persecution" of church members. He believed the violence used to detain Mkalavishvili was unacceptable.
Amazingly Bishop Ambrose also insisted that there is no evidence that Mkalavishvili had been involved in physical violence against religious minorities.
Bishop Ambrose said he did not believe that Mkalavishvili had been involved in burning Bibles, despite of the testimony from Baptists of Georgia that he was present at the attacks on the warehouse and on the Bible Society lorry in 2002, during which Bibles and other Christian books were burnt.
"Our people assured us that no Bibles were ever burnt" the Greek Bishop insists.
Baptists react on the statement of the Old Calendarist Bishop of Greece:
“We can provide video materials and even burnt copies of Bibles which were burnt under the direct supervision of the Renegade priest” declares the Revd. Gregory Levinetz, press officer of the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia. ”One of the copies of the semi-burnt Bible is kept on the altar in the family Chapel of our Bishop as a reminder of that dreadful event, when in this Christian country Bibles were burnt.”
Mkalavishvili’s Arrest Endorsed
On 15 March the >> Movement Against Religious Intolerance in Georgia (MARIG) << issued a statement condemning the way the renegade priest was arrested. In the Statement one can read:
“On the 12th of March 2004 the police detained the head of the so-called Gldani Eparchy Basil Mkalavishvili and a number of his followers. As was expected, this act caused a variety of reactions on the part of the society. Due to this fact, we believe it is essential to make the following statement:
1. The group of Basil Mkalavishvili or the so-called “Gldani eparchy’, has the right to have its opinion on religion and to perform religious rituals, like any other member of the society. However, Mkalavishvili and his followers have been systematically terrorizing the society, engaging in psychological terror against free mass-media, non-governmental organizations, governmental bodies, as well as using physical violence against the representatives of religious groups and organizations. The very fact that their activity remained unpunished undermined both the Georgian state and the century-long tradition of the Georgian Orthodox Church, as Mkalavishvili used to act in the name of the latter. Thus, the detention of Mkalavishvili was not only just, it was absolutely crucial. After Basil Mkalavishvili, a person who has been wanted by the police, carried out an open and public press-conference on the 11th of March, challenging the Georgian state and society, his detention could no longer be delayed. Despite the fact that Mkalavishvili’s detention has been carried out with certain mistakes that can be explained by the lack of professionalism on the part of certain policemen, it should be noted that the police had no other option but to apply force to those violating the law, namely those demonstrating massive resistance to the police. In this situation. The police was trying to minimize the casualties that could have followed the operation. The fact that Mkalavishvili and his followers were hiding behind the walls of the church does not reduce the responsibility of the police to fully carry out the operation, aimed at detaining the violators of the law.
2. In the current pre-election period, some political parties have made attempts to use the discontent of a certain part of the society with Mkalavishvili’s detention and the methods the police has used, in order to gain political benefits. Manipulating religious issues and using personal feelings of individuals in order to improve one’s own rating is morally unacceptable everywhere, especially in a country that has been suffering from religious violence for years. Moreover, it should be noted that the majority of individuals defending Mkalavishvili’s rights today were silent in the days when Mkalavishvili and his followers were attacking the representatives of the Georgian society.”
The Statement was signed by members of the Movement including Baptists. The Movement (MARIG) was founded February 21, 2003 after the terrorists’ attack on the Cathedral Baptist Church in Tbilisi on January 24. Since that time the movement, which is made up by a number of decent NGO’s and well known Georgians, has been actively involved in struggle for religious liberty.
German Baptist Educators hosted by Stalin’s Clan Member
From March15 to 20 the School of Elijah classes were held at the Beteli Center which is still under construction. Two new subjects were taught by Dr. Matthias and Anke Walter, a young German couple, during the week
Dr Mathias Walter is a Baptist minister from Sindelfingen. His expertise as a scholar from Heidelberg is in the Church Fathers, which is great rarity among Baptist scholars. Matthias taught documents of the Apostolic Fathers. His wife Anke Walter is a prolific teacher of Occupational Therapy and a skilful trainer for counseling. She taught a course in counseling.
This week of intensive studies went well. It was only overshadowed by the tensions in Western Georgian autonomous Region of Ajara. Therefore students from that area were not able to attend the School. During the morning devotions students prayed for a peaceful solution of the conflict between President Saakashvili and local leader Aslan Abashidze. Fortunately the confrontation in the region could be avoided.
Anke and Mathias proved to be excellent teachers. They easily managed to have a good and engaged working relationship with the two groups of students, which both are made up by a great diversity of people. In the class there are local bishops, ministers, deacons and lay leaders. They came from entirely different backgrounds (peasants, artisans, medical doctors, teachers and lecturers). “I am surprised by this experiment of having such a diverse group of students,” Dr Mathias Walter commented, “but it works very well.” Anke Walter was also glad for being able to teach at the School of Elijah. “In spite of the very intensive working week, it was like a holiday to be here” she kept saying during the week.
Anke and Mathias stayed at a Baptist home during their visit. Mrs. Ether Jugashvili was their hostess. The family is closely related to Stalin’s family. Stalin’s real name was Jugashvili. The name Stalin was his revolutionary name. It means “man of steel”. Unlike Stalin Ether Jugashvili is a very kind and sweet individual. “She is like mom for us” Anke comments.
The visit of the German educators had been encouraged and supported by the International Chairman of the School Elijah Board, the Revd. Dr. Karl Heinz Walter, father of Mathias Walter.
A Bishop who Succeeded to fill the life with Meaning
On March 20th the Lutheran Church of Reconciliation was full of people. There were Lutheran parishioners, Baptists, Catholics, Orthodox and Muslim believers, leaders of religious communities of Georgia, Lutheran Bishops and Pastors from Germany, the German Ambassador to Georgia Uwe Schram and the Prime Minister of Georgia Mr. Zurab Zvania. It was really a great occasion. All of them had come to the church to say good-bye to Bishop Gert Hummel of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Georgia. He died unexpectedly a few days earlier.
“His death is a great loss for Georgia” declared the Prime Minister of Georgia during the funeral Service. It is indeed an enormous loss for the religious and ecumenical life of Georgia. Dr. Gert Hummel was born in 1933 in Sindelfingen, South Germany. He studied theology in Tübingen and Heidelberg. He was Paul Tillich’s disciple and an outstanding theologian, honorary doctor of a number of universities of the world. After his retirement from the University of Saarbrücken he came to Georgia to build up a Lutheran community and Church that had been abolished by the Soviets since 1941.
The funeral Service at the church went for three hours although only religious and government people were allowed to speak. After the Prime Minister Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili was invited to speak on behalf of all religious communities of Georgia. This is what the Baptist Bishop said:
“My fellow Bishop Gert,
Chaim Potok in his book “The Chosen” makes one of his heroes say: “We live less than the time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. A man must fill his life with meaning. Meaning is not automatically given to life. A life filled with meaning is worthy of rest.” You have been a man who has certainly given meaning to the blink of an eye. You managed to do it so well that all of us are caught by surprise how much one particular individual could accomplish. As I speak now I hear you saying: “A good Schwabian should do three things: >> to produce a son, to plant a tree and build a house.” << You have accomplished all that and much much more. Of course you were not alone in your ministry. Christina was always with you as a support, as an encouragement, as a source of inspirations. There were friends and colleagues, acquaintances and all those you cared about.
We have come here, your Ecumenical and Inter-Confessional friends to say thank you for what you have been and to thank the Almighty for the gift of your life among us. We can easily witness today, before each other and before all the company of heaven, that you have managed to fill your life with a meaning, a life which is worthy of rest, a meaning which is full of love and care, compassion and struggle.
Your Lord, whom you served and loved dearly, says:
“I am the Resurrection and I am Life. Whoever has faith in me shall have life, even though he dies.” With this faith we commend you to the rest in the Almighty God.
Brother Gert, the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his faith shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace “.
The President of Georgia Mr. Michael Saakashvili also sent a letter of condolence which was read in the service: “I have heard with pain in my heart about the tragic news of Bishop Gert Hummel’s death. I share your deep grief because of this loss and express my sincere condolences.”
Bishop Gert Hummel had a stroke on Friday 12th. He spent few days in a Hospital being unconscious. After the funeral service his body was flown back to Stuttgart, Germany to be buried at his family grave yard.
Tbilisi, March 23,2004
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