The published information about the meeting of official delegation of the Georgian Patriarchy with James Appathurai, NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia, where as Metropolitan Andrew of Gori and Ateni stated, “the difficult situation in Abkhazia and Samachablo” had been discussed, wasn’t left without attention in South Ossetia.
A representative of the Georgian Church, who deliberately used a term “samachablo”, invented by Gamsahurdia’s regime, to insult the Ossetians, possibly doesn’t know or doesn’t want to remember that when in late Middle Ages feudal seigneury Samachablo (just property of feudal lords Machabeli’s, who, by the way, were of Ossetian origin) executed control over only several South Ossetia villages, Georgia as a state didn’t even exist and there were separate patched-up premises, that were Turkish vilayets or Iranian provinces, and their “tzars” usually had Muslim and Christian names at the same time.
South Ossetia party has made and makes numerous statements, including at the Geneva Discussions, about the inadmissibility of using such inadequate terms as “samachablo” or “Thskhivali region”.
The Georgian Patriarchy headed by “well known” in South Ossetia Patriarch-Catholicos Ilia II, who was personally blessing Georgian armed forces to extinguish the Ossetians, has no moral right to discuss the destiny of South Ossetia, a recognized independent state.
People in South Ossetia remember well how the Georgian Church and the Catholicos were among those who inspired the anti-Ossetian hysteria that has been spreading over Georgia since late 1980th. Representatives of the Georgian Patriarchy marched in vanguard of several thousand strong column heading towards Tskhinval on November 23, 1989 to organize a “peaceful meeting”. It was Patriarch Ilia II who declared that “each person killing a Georgian, no matter whether the victim was guilty or not guilty, becomes an enemy of Georgian nation”. He also was the person, who being sanctifying Georgian current flag, expressed hopes that that it would soon wave over Tskhinval and Sukhum. And it again was Ilia II who was the spiritual encourager of another genocide of Ossetian people known as “Chistoe pole” organized in 2008.
And now to satisfy the ambitions of Georgian elite, the Church demonstrates its readiness to worship the Western World and NATO. And hardly have they taken Christian benevolence as the top priority.
November 10, 2016, Tskhinval