In the recent period it is especially noticeable attacks on the Orthodox Church of Georgia by party and so-called civil activists as well as by National Movement and media belonging to the Lelo in parallel with the celebration of religious holidays. There is a strong understanding that these attacks which continue to this day were pre-planned and coordinated. The mix of misinformation, manipulation and hysteria that the public saw in the attacks on the church and its congregations went beyond the scope of the previously observed attacks on the church and approached a dangerous threshold beyond which the civil peace could be irreparably damaged.

For the first time in the history of independent Georgia we witnessed the desecration of an icon in a church. For the first time after the collapse of the Soviet empire the Orthodox community became an object of harassment for the celebration of Christmas.

It is particularly worrying that the so-called civil society organizations actively participate in these attacks. Moreover, the hysteria related to the icon placed in the Trinity Cathedral was ignited by Giorgi Kandelaki, a representative of one of the non-governmental organizations "SovLab", who is also a member of the political council of the party "European Georgia" distinguished by its hostile rhetoric towards the Church of Georgia. This fact itself is the most visible diagnosis of the problem we have in the Georgian non-governmental sector - the so-called NGO sector is almost completely dominated by politicians who engage in party propaganda funded from abroad.

Even more cynical was the fact that one of the active participants of this campaign is Beka Mindiashvili, the head of the "Tolerance Center under the Public Defender". The man who is supposed to be promoting the idea of religious tolerance has himself become the mastermind behind a campaign of attacks on religious grounds. Moreover, he is generally characterized by religious intolerance and hostile rhetoric towards the Georgian Orthodox Church. Here aresome of his public statements that fully demonstrate how he does not understand the idea or the spirit of tolerance:

"Remove this patriarch and clergy from the agenda once and for all, leave behind this den of spies."

"The fact that we are a marginal slum of the Russian Stalinist Pravoslavia and not the Apostolic Church of Georgia, shows the extreme degradation of our church."

"The schismatic atomic Russian fascist Pravoslavia and its unfortunate satellites - on the seventh celebrate some anti-Western stupidity, obstinacy and ire, and in Georgia in addition, instead of Nativity of Jesus in the manger, today the church celebrates the ascension of Ilia II to the throne."

Referring to the Catholicos-Patriarch of the GeorgianOrthodox Church as a "spy", the church as "degraded" and calling the celebration of Christmas according to the secular calendar on January 7th, "anti-western stupidity" is exactly the religious intolerance, hostile rhetoric and hate speech, that is what the so-called "Tolerance Center" should fight according to the rules.

On this occasion I have applied to the public defender with a request to provide clarification on this issue. The public heard his explanation. As it turned out the so-called “Tolerance Center under the Public Defender” was not a center or structural unit under the “Public Defender” at all, but is a separate independent project, which in turn is problematic, since the name of a constitutional body is assigned in a way that misleads citizens and presents NGO as a government agency.

As for this financing of so-called center. As it turns out it is financed under one of the programs of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) "Unity in Diversity". I am very sorry that time and again USAID is at the epicenter of a scandal related to projects financed in its name. It turned out that a person who is distinguished by religious intolerance and inciting religious hysteria, manages to get American funding for the work for the sake of which he is doing the complete opposite.

It goes without saying that propaganda against the GeorgianChurch and its congregation is not in the interests of the Georgian people, but at the same time I am deeply convinced that financing religious intolerance in another country is not in the interests of the American people either. Therefore, I expect that the leadership of USAID will soon clarify this matter and act in the interests of the American and Georgian people.

Here I would like to address other donors. The society has already been convinced that in the absence of legislation on the transparency of foreign funding such facts become known to the public only periodically and accidentally. However, the damage that such activities could cause to Georgian society may be irreparable. Therefore, I urge all donors not to wait for such scandals to be accidentally revealed and to check for themselves whether the funds of their citizens are being used to finance projects and people that are contrary to our shared values in the field of human rights and are aimed at radicalizing society.

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