January 2, 2014
In the southwest corner of Georgia, located on the border of Turkey and the capital of Adjara Batumi, which last 20 years was the scene of a strange religious conversion process. The end of the Soviet Union in 1991, 75 percent of the region’s population Müslümank, today, 65 percent of Adjara Orthodox Christians.
Fatih GÖKHAN DİLER
is fgdiler@agos.com.t
In the southwest corner of Georgia, located on the border of Turkey and the capital of Adjara Batumi, which last 20 years was the scene of a strange religious conversion process.The end of the Soviet Union in 1991, 75 percent of the region’s population Müslümank, today, 65 percent of Adjara Orthodox Christians. The world’s only example of this transformation be explained?
Secret identity
Russian broadcast news website ‘Pravoslav i Mira (Orthodoxy and the World) speaking Georgian Orthodox Patriarch Ilia II’s cousin, Adjara region Batumi Metropolitan Dimitri “according to Adjarians Georgians used to be Christians realized that. Christian tradition had always lived in this community. 19 century secretly carrying the cross and Easter egg dye those … Local public stance against Christianity had always respectful. ”
The European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) prepared by the ‘Islamic and Religious Conversion in Ajara study’ Muslim identity in the region has weakened considerably in the post-Soviet period. 17 Acara under Ottoman control in the last century, after this period has witnessed a rapid transition to Islam from Orthodox Christianity. Area dignitaries through the religion of the empire was able to maintain their position politically and economically, and also within the period mentioned apostasy, a fact that brought the various tax advantages.But the villagers for a long time refused to give up Christianity, in te
Achara Ottoman Empire against Russia as a strategic asset until seeing. 19 century in the region corresponding to Istanbul and worked to increase the authority of this period, but also to the influence of Islam in the region rapidly into a process has been taken. Until the 1990s the balance in favor of Islam, has been turned upside today.
‘God’s miracle’
Metropolitan Dimitri ‘metamorphosis’ as portrayed in this process, namely “the entire region, metamorphosis, the transition to Orthodoxy from Islam or the merits of their ancestors return to Faith” process to witness. On 13 May 1991 stating that five thousand Muslims and atheists Dimitri Orthodox, the same year the Soviets in Khoulo the opening of the first religious high schools, as well as many in the region, adding that priests come from Muslim families. Acara, director of the Theological School in Istanbul, a trained mullah’s grandson.Dimitri for this transformation “a miracle of God.”
The French broadcasting Oumar. Speaking to the Georgian journalist Alina com Okkoropiridz, “the Orthodox Church is the main pillar of our national identity, we need to understand. In the past, all the great neighbors, the Persians, the Ottomans, the Russians have been inundated. A mortar that binds us together as if religion did not exist, there would be no such thing as the Georgian people, “he says. ecmı According to the findings of this case Acara of the Muslim community in some sectors – for example, young, socially active, relatively well-educated and urban middle class – religious identities again “adjusted”, a part of Christianity the way back to the other part of the Muslim identity, a significant loss was experienced . Simultaneously, the Georgian Orthodox Church has taken several steps in Ajara.
Continued construction of the church, religious educational institutions were opened. Over the past 20 years, the media, and other nationalist parties are often the focus ought to be a true Georgian Orthodox were söyleyegel. On the other hand, last August, Georgia, to the southwest minaret of a mosque in Adige area for construction materials were removed on the grounds of customs duties not paid. Minaret opposed to the destruction of the Muslims were arrested. Minaret befallen the nation if they formed around the concept of identity politics and religion in the country, opened the discussion again.