“No loud words, no hierarchs, no large number of people gathered to celebrate Family Purity Day, and not even time itself will erase the evil committed on May 17, 2013. We cannot become a dignified society by covering up such clear violence,” reads a letter by imprisoned Droa party leader Elene Khoshtaria, released from Rustavi Women’s Prison.

As Khoshtaria notes, “the Church must speak honestly about this painful day and explain how it is possible to justify beating people because of their differences in the name of Christianity, and why members of the clergy became organizers of this violence.”

“First of all, the Church must speak honestly about this painful day and explain how it is possible to justify beating people because of their differences in the name of Christianity, and why members of the clergy became organizers of this violence. Honest discussion of such issues will become a healthy and solid foundation for uniting society and defining the role of the Church in this process. I will not surrender Christianity to anyone - as a faith and as a worldview founded on love, rising above oneself, spreading goodness, and believing in the future. It was extremely painful today to watch children with Duchenne syndrome and their parents having to struggle for the attention of so many clergy members and people,” Elene Khoshtaria wrote in the letter.