10 - ‘Forgotten by Many and Remembered by Few’: Religious Responses to Forced Migration in Georgia

Summary

Abstract

This chapter examines the institutional dimensions of religious responses to forced migration in contemporary Georgia. It focuses on the internally displaced population of Georgia from the two breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia/Tskhinvali region to further scrutinise how major religious organisations respond to the significant migration crises on the level of policy and discourse. The chapter shows that despite significant organisational capacities, internally displaced people are largely ignored by all major religious organisations who, beyond political disagreements, also engage in various property and economic disputes.

Keywords: Georgia, refugees, internally displaced people, religion

Introduction

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Georgia has witnessed three large waves of internal forced migration as a result of armed conflicts. The armed conflicts in the breakaway Georgian regions of Abkhazia (1992-1993) and Tskhinvali region/South Ossetia (1991-1992 and 2008) resulted in the displacement of 273,411 people, overwhelmingly ethnic Georgians, from South Ossetia and Abkhazia to Georgian administered territory (IDP Figures 2019). In addition to the history of internal displacement, as a result its location at the geographical crossroad of Europe and Asia, and its experience of domination under the Ottoman and Russian Empires, Georgia's religious field has evolved in the context of a fusion between religious and ethnic identities. In the course of its interactions with political power structures, the Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC) managed to normatively intertwine the concept of nationhood and ‘being Georgian’ with the religious identity of ‘being Orthodox Christian’. Ethnic and religious minorities were thereby excluded from the church's national project. The two next largest minority religious organisations in Georgia, namely the Islamic community and the Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC), struggled to compete for fundamental rights and liberties. With major religious organisations busy with advancing their organisational interests or challenging existing power relations, internally displaced persons (IDPs) were marginalised in the major ongoing process of Georgia's economic, social and political transition. Hence what might seem like a contradiction of the universalism of Christian theology became gradually entrenched through the Church's collaboration with the state. Unlike the Islamic community or the AAC, which have both had a historical presence in Georgian national culture, only the GOC managed to acquire unprecedented political power, allying itself with major political actors and securing legal superiority over other religious denominations.