The problematic issues of the Armenian Churches were
the focus of attention in the yesterday meetings of the official visit of the
NA chairman of Armenia Arthur Baghdasarian to Georgia.Arthur Baghdasarian
asked for the assistance of the patriarch of Georgia Ilia second to solve the
legal status of Armenian churches in the territory of Georgia and to give them
not the status of private company but to become a subject of public right. Ilia
Second considered solvable the problem of the legal status by the law "About
religion". They came to form a working group, which will discuss discrepancies
on the Armenian churches. Ilia second answered to the question of a journalist
about the cultural heritage of national minorities: " I think our Government
pays rather great attention to the ethnic minorities of Georgia. And if there
are some economic, social problems there are same for all inhabitants of Georgia."But
the NA chairman answered to our question about patriarch’s these affirmation after
the meeting: " The best version isn’t the counterattack but to form that
working group. We have our historical documents and archives." Ilia Second
had also mentioned that if the Armenian Church had its head of eparchy in Georgia
but the Georgian church didn’t have such a representative. Mr. Baghdasarian suggested
to appoint an official representative of Georgian Church in Armenia. Arthur Baghdasarian
also visited the pantheon of Armenian cultural workers and public men. The pantheon
was renovated in November 2002 by the "Powerful Homeland" party, "Yerevan"
foundation, municipalities of Yerevan and Tbilisi and by the efforts of the Armenian
Embassy in Georgia. Arthur Baghdasarian reminded that pantheon had been almost
destroyed two years before. While Hovhannes Tumanian, Raffy, Gabriel Sundukian,
Ghasaros Aghayan and other famous Armenian figures are buried there. The delegation
visited also the Armenian Dramatic theatre of Tbilisi where were either explosion
and fire was set. Though the Armenian budget will grant some amount to the theatre
but the NA chairman promised to give them a car for tours. By the way the Georgian
budget gives less money to the Armenian theatre than to the Azerbaijani. This
circumstance was stressed during the NA chairman’s meeting with the representatives
of the Armenian community. There were sounded a lot of complaints. Especially
the principal of the Armenian school in Akhaltskha Luba Matevosian declared that
they didn’t see steps taken by the Armenian side for retraining. While there are
about 150 Armenian schools in Georgia. The head of the "Vernatun" union
affirmed that the situation after Georgian revolution wasn’t profitable for Armenia
stressing repeated events of dismissals and the increasing emigration. As a summary
of these two-days visit the journalists asked to the Ambassador of Armenia in
Georgia Georgy Khosroev to mark if the meetings would help for the solution of
gathered problems. He answered that the problems weren’t solved by two-day visit.
It needs in consequent work. He also mentioned that it is useful to stress the
problem of the Armenian community in every meeting in Georgia for making it clear
that nobody has put it off from the agenda. And Arthur Baghdasarian stressed for
many times that there were a lot of unsolved problems in the Armenian-Georgian
contacts so he performed practically and not for the "ceremonial friendship".Anna
Israelian Tbilisi
