Khatuna Kokrashvili, The Russian Empires Religious Policy in Georgia (the first half of the 19th century) (original) (raw)

2014, Certain Aspects of Georgia-Russian Relations in Modern Historiography, David Muskhelishvili Editor, Caucasus Region Political, Economic and Security Issues, Nova Publishers, New York

Khatuna Kokrashvili, The Russian Empires Religious Policy in Georgia (the first half of the 19th century) The turn of the 18th-19th centuries the use of religious factors in political interests noticeably strengthened in the Russian empire. As a matter of fact Orthodox Christianity served as a means of assimilating neighbouring territories and leading its own colonial policy. In the first half of the 19th century after the annexation of the Georgian state the church reform carried out in Georgia by the imperial power, served a definite aim that of the abolition independence of the Georgian church, inculcation of the rules of the Russian divine service and the establishment of the church organization controlled by the state as much as possible. It also implied the radical structural-administrative reorganization of the Georgian church, the commutation of the church taxes i.e., the change from paying taxes in kind to paying money and the secularization of church lands; apart from that the reorganization of the order of the divine service and the change of the position of the lowest layer of the clergy was planned. The result of the church and religious policy, carried out by the imperial power, was that the autocephaly of the Georgian church was abolished, the status of Catholicos-patriarch of Georgian Church was canceled and the position of exarch was established. The rules and principles of governance, structural-administrative form of the Georgian Church also was changed and it became completely subjected to the Holy Synod of the Russian Empire. Consequently, the Ecclesiastical law standards and the legal rights of the Georgian Church was broken; The inviolability of church property was also violated and, alongside it the Georgian clergy found itself dependent on the state exchequer. Apart from that, owing to the reform carried out, the close connection of the church with its parish was severed. With time the church became the means of carrying out the Russianizing policy in Georgia. The appearance of religious sects in Georgia is a direct result of Russia‘s colonial policy. On the other hand, the measures, taken towards the Catholic church conditioned the development of the process of Armenian Georgian Catholics. Thus, at the compulsory and forcible church policy of the Russian power, the establishment of the state control on the church, the attempt to suppress national traditions and the persecution of the national culture, the weakening and very often the destruction of the connection between the church and its folk, all these circumstances became the reason for the development and aggravation of the contrary processes among the local inhabitants of both Christian and non-Christian faith. As could be expected such a policy gave birth to religious indifference, and in other confessional groups to an acute anti-Orthodox reaction.