‘Even with the dominance of the Orthodox Church, some Georgians searched for truth through philosophies provided by other denominations and churches.’ Photo: Tbilisi by Denis Arslanbekov on Unsplash.
‘Support for Georgian Quakers became pressing after the Russian invasion.’
Cambridge Friends have been supporting Quakers in Georgia for over a decade. Ian Tod has an update
For over a decade, Jesus Lane Meeting in Cambridge, along with Meetings in Bristol and elsewhere in the UK and Ireland, have been supporting Quakers in Georgia. Georgia is located in the Caucuses region of Eurasia, at the crossroads of Western Asia and Europe. It is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. Georgia covers a territory of 69,700 square kilometers and its population is about 3.7 million. The country is a unitary parliamentary republic with the government elected through representative democracy.
During the classical era, several independent kingdoms became established in what is now Georgia. The unified Kingdom of Georgia reached its golden age in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Thereafter the kingdom declined and eventually disintegrated under the hegemony of various regional powers including the Mongols, the Ottoman Empire and Iran. In the late eighteenth century Russia started taking an interest in Georgia, and Georgian territories were absorbed into the Russian empire through the course of the nineteenth century. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, Georgia became a founding republic of the Soviet Union, in 1922. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union during the late 1980s, Georgia seceded and became an independent country, in 1991. Throughout these two millennia, Georgians maintained a strong independent sense of identity with their own unique language and culture.
Georgians adopted Christianity in the early fourth century and thereafter the Georgian Orthodox Church had enormous spiritual and political influence in the country. During the Soviet period, religions were forbidden and, even though some churches managed to function, many Georgians felt spiritual hunger. When the Soviet Union collapsed, people took advantage of religious freedom and started attending churches. With financial and moral support from the state, the Georgian Orthodox Church re-established its dominant position and today about 84 per cent of the population practice Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
Even with this dominance, some Georgians searched for truth through philosophies provided by other denominations and churches. Among those searchers were future members of Georgian Friends Worship Group, who were looking for a peaceful church in a country that had suffered several vicious wars. In 1996, a group of Georgians contacted Friends in the United States and Moscow and in 1997 some Georgians visited the gathering of Moscow Monthly Meeting. Contacts continued but, due to difficulties in communications, it took until the mid-2000s when the internet became more reliable and secure that Georgian Friends were able to correspond easily with Friends in different countries. Georgian Friends Worship Group was established in 2007 when seven Georgians became international members of Quakers, through the Europe & Middle East Section of Friends World Committee for Consultation. The Worship Group currently has about twelve to fifteen members or attenders. The nearest Quaker Meetings to Tbilisi are either in Moscow, about 1,600 kilometres to the northeast, or in Ramallah in Palestine, about 1,300 kilometres to the southwest.
The concern for Georgian Quakers was brought before Jesus Lane Quakers and Cambridge Quakers by Brian Bromwich when he returned to Cambridge after working in Dublin. While he was there, Brian was on the Peace Committee and one of the Committee’s activities was supporting Quakers in Georgia. Support for Georgian Quakers became pressing after the Russian invasion in early 2008 of the Georgian region of South Ossetia, which resulted in an influx of 7,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) into Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia.
Jesus Lane Meeting adopted this concern and appointed the Cambridge-Tbilisi Quaker Link Group to liaise with Georgian Friends and to raise and utilise funds to support their needs and activities. Initially, Georgian Quakers were supported to provide medicines and medical support plus schoolbooks for IDP families from South Ossetia and also from Abkhazia, which was another region of Georgia taken over by Russia following a conflict in 1992. The Radley Trust at Cambridge contributed by providing funds to rent a flat for use as the Tbilisi Meeting House, and also to purchase equipment to support Friends’ activities. Georgian Friends also received support for projects from Friends in Sweden and the USA including Alternatives to Violence (AVP) activities.
Support was subsequently expanded to include a range of projects including support for an employment centre for IDPs. The objective of the employment project was to help IDPs find and apply for jobs. An employment centre was set up in the flat used by Tbilisi Meeting House. Various media were screened weekly to identify employment opportunities and a sheet listing details of employment opportunities was distributed to IDPs living in shelters (collective centres) and newly-built settlements. IDPs were also encouraged to visit the employment centre where they could investigate the jobs listed and were given help in contacting employers and completing application forms.
Friends have also been supporting a diabetes screening project. Diabetes is one of the most common chronic diseases in Georgia and the purpose of the project was to diagnose people from different ethnic minorities for diabetes mellitus and advise them on a course of action if they were found to be diabetic. About 570 people were screened from a range of groups including Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Russians, Greeks, Jews, Kurds, Jezids, Ossetians, and Tatars.
For the past three years, Jesus Lane along with the Radley Trust has supported Georgian Quakers by paying for the rental of a flat for use by Georgian Quakers for their activities, including Meeting for Worship. Georgian Quakers are a very diverse group who live throughout Tbilisi, a city of 1.5 million, and they value a central place to meet and worship together. Discussions were held with Dublin Friends about joint funding of the rent for the Tbilisi Meeting House and hopefully that may happen in future.
In 2011, Georgian Friends visited Cambridge and Bristol meetings as well as Swarthmoor Hall and Woodbrooke and, over the years, several Cambridge Friends visited Tbilisi. One unexpected benefit of the recent lockdown is that Georgian Friends have joined the Cambridge and Bristol Zoom Meetings for Worship on Sunday mornings. It has been a deep and long and meaningful fellowship.
