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A letter from the Locum Tenens
A letter addressed to the Presiding Bishop of the EBCG was received in Tbilisi. The letter says:
“Your Eminence, We hereby express fervent gratitude on receipt of Your brotherly letter through which You participated in the profound sorrow of the Alexandrian Church following the sudden death of its Primate, Petros VII, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa of blessed memory, together with His honorable entourage. Therefore, in thanking you again for your condolences, we paternally pray that our All Holy God will grant you health, strength and every good thing, and may His Grace and His abundant mercy be with you, together with our brotherly love.
Petros Metropolitan of Aksum, the Locum Tenens.
In the Great City of Alexandria.”
Bishop Malkhaz had known the late Pope and Patriarch Petros VII and was very saddened to hear about his tragic death in a helicopter accident. “We mourn along with the Orthodox Church of Alexandria” wrote the Baptist Bishop immediately after the tragic accident.
Negotiation with Terrorists?
“God does have a sense of humor” with these words started Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili his announcements on Sunday, October 17, at the Baptist Cathedral Church in Tbilisi. “In the past we had to fight to have the renegade Orthodox priest arrested; now we have to fight to get him out of jail.”
Fr. Basil Mkalavishvili has been responsible for the violence against religious minorities for last five years. He and his followers were responsible for burning Bibles, beating and humiliating people, spreading terror all over the country and enjoying absolute impunity being protected by certain top government officers. After the “Revolution of Roses” he was arrested in his own church along with other supporters of him. Now court hearings are in progress. There are 19 volumes of criminal cases against him.
On October 4th a group of Baptists requested the right to visit the priest in Prison. The permit was issued by the judge the same day. They met with Fr. Basil Mklavishvili in the room of the head of the prison hospital. After a short conversation in the presence of Fr. Basil’s lawyer and others, Bishop Malkhaz asked everybody to leave him alone with the prisoner. It was the first time they met. After the meeting the Bishop declared that he was ready to get reconciled with the Priest under the condition that the priest would condemn openly everything he had done against religious groups. That was how the talks between fundamentalists and Baptists started.
“There are two reasons why we should forgive the renegade priest and try to get him out of the jail,” maintained the Bishop in the Cathedral, “One, because we are Christians and should witness to everybody that Christianity is about forgiveness, and two, because its better to have a confessing and forgiven extremist out of jail rather than keep him in the prison as ‘a martyr’ for Orthodoxy.”
What can bring us to the Gospel?
St. Irineus’ Biblical Theological Institute in Tbilisi has recently published its first issue of the Emmaus magazine.
One of the articles published in this issue is by Ms Anna Mamaladze. The title of the article is Thoughts about the Orthodox Church.
“Our Bishops and priests do not preach at all.” Ms Mamaladze writes, “They either make announcements about up-coming feasts or issue some moral appeals. In better cases preachers wonder in the impenetrable woods of Orthodox traditions and never bring us to the Gospel.”
Than the author goes on explaining what she means by “the impenetrable woods of Orthodox Traditions: “They speak so much about the saints, who were fed by the dear and burred by lions or about wonder working icons, that a listener is not able to understand what is the most important.” She thinks that the most important is the Gospel and deeply regrets that it is not preached in the Georgian Orthodox Church. To illustrate what she means she comes up with a story. “One lady, who used to be an Orthodox and than became a Baptist told me, that she had attended an Orthodox church for a number of years, but it was only from Baptists that she learned that Christ died on the cross in order to save humankind, that by his death he defeated the death including her own death. I was not surprised to hear it,” she says, “I only felt very sorry.”
Meeting in Beria’s office
On November 9th Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili was invited to meet with the minister of the State Security Mr. Vano Merabishvili. At the meeting the Minister assured the bishop of the state’s determination to finish with religious violence in the country.
The meeting was incredibly friendly. At the end of the conversation the minister told the bishop a story: “When we entered Batumi in order to liberate it from Aslan’s authoritarian regime with all our tanks and ammunition, a strange thing happened to me. As soon as we learned that Aslan fled the city I relaxed to such extend that I completely lost memory of everything that happened. I could only remember your face. Nothing else”
Bishop Malkhaz was really the only religious leader who participated in Batumi events and addressed in public the huge rally of university students, who demanded Aslan’s resignation.
“I consider you as a fellow revolutionary” jokingly the minister said to the Bishop. The meeting was really very encouraging. There was certain irony about the meeting. It took a place in the same room where Stalin’s closest associate Mr. Lavrenty Beria used to have his office before he was called to serve the regime in Moscow. He was responsible for the bloody repressions in Stalin’s time.
Memorial Prayer Service at the British war Graves
Every November the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia is asked to take services at the British war graves. This year on November 14 Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili, Pastor Merab Gaprindashvili and a choir of the Cathedral Baptist Church celebrated the service. They were assisted by the British Military attaché for Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
On the cemetery there are graves of about a dozen of British soldiers who died in the military hospital in Tbilisi during World War II. Some of those British soldiers, who were stationed in Tbilisi during and for some time after the war, attended the Baptist church in Tbilisi.
“I can remember Scottish soldiers in their skirts, who joined us in worship, keeping their guns under the pews,” writes Askold Belousov in his memoirs. Belousov was one of the spiritual fathers of the Baptist movement in the Soviet Union who lived in Georgia.
Home Missionaries Meeting
“Time has come to reform not only our liturgical life but the missiological vision as well.” said Bishop Malkhaz at the meeting of 20 home missionaries. They met November 18-19 at the Betheli Center, which still under construction.
The group of home missionaries worked for two days in order to tackle the most important issues of mission work in Georgia. Fur working group under guidance of the Revd Merab Gaprindashvili presented the results of their work to the Presiding Bishop.
All the missionaries agreed that there have to be major changes in order to make their mission successful. They were all critical of the old methodology of the home mission work after the break up of the Soviet Union.
The following conclusions were made:
a. About concern for Preaching. The preaching of the gospel and the verbal communication of the message of salvation in Christ is to be strengthened by all means.
b. About care of the people. The bearers of this message of salvation have to serve human needs without distinction of people who they are and what they need.
c. About concern for the creation. The missionaries admitted that they had ignored our responsibility to care for the creation (Gen. 2:15). They affirmed that environmental issues have to became an integral part of their ministry.
d. About concern for justice. The missionaries admitted that they need to do more to promote political, social and religious justice in the Georgian society.
e. About concern for seriousness. We have to practice what we preach. Missionaries have to give a good example of integrity and service in the name of Christ.
f. About concern for contextual mission. The missionaries made a strong statement about the absolute necessity that the language of the Georgian culture is used as a vehicle to communicate the Gospel. They affirmed the activity of their Baptist leadership whose visible involvement in the national life make the mission of the home missionaries more successful in the Georgian culture.
The discussions of the home missionaries will continue and result with the formation of a mission statement of the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia.
Former Head of the EBCG Dies
Revd. Guram Kumelashvili (69), former head of Georgian Baptists, died unexpectedly after a heart attack November 17. He became the first leader of the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia immediately after the ecclesial independence was gained by Georgian Baptists in 1991. From 1994 to till his death he served a small Baptist congregation in the Navtlugi district of the capital city of Tbilisi.
The funeral of the departed Brother was celebrated at the cemetery by the Leader of the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia, Bishop Malkhaz Songulashvili and the clergy from the Cathedral Baptist Church. The choir of the Cathedral sung.
The farewell sermon was given by the Bishop. “It was not easy for me to deliver this sermon. But last night I was skimming the New Testament that belonged to Brother Guram. This helped me to make up my mind as to what I should say at the coffin of the departed minister” said the Bishop, “It was a really moving experience to read notes he had made in his well worn out New Testament. I realized that the book was really part of his identity.
On the front page he had written a long list of most important dates in his life. Here are some of them:
‘1945 I came to the Church …
‘1964 I was baptized...
‘1984 I was ordained...
‘1991 I became head of Georgian Baptist Churches...’
The last record in the list says: ‘2002 the end of the joy.’ This is the date when he lost his beloved wife. Their love was really exceptional and remarkable. He never accepted her death, but rather lost the interest in life. He desperately wanted to go home. Now we can add one more date to his list on Guram’s behalf: ‘2004 beginning of the eternal joy’.”
Bishop Malkhaz concluded his funeral sermon by saying: “This is the joy that has been hidden in the suffering and resurrection of our Saviour. This is our hope, the hope of the apostolic faith of the church of Christ.”
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