“When someone has fallen to the ground, you can only extend a helping hand and never, under any circumstance, beat them. Let’s unite against evil. A friend counted, and at least 34 priests publicly distance themselves from violence in various forms and openly state this. For a Christian person, this is not any kind of achievement at all. Therefore, let us once again, together, say even louder that the minimum for children of the Bible, is argument for argument, and for protest – the power of legitimate public good, and never insult or desire for destruction. When someone has fallen to the ground, you can only extend a helping hand and never, under any circumstance, beat them. Even predatory animals sometimes refrain from such actions. Belatedly, but necessarily, separately and together, we acknowledge that there is no justification for beating a person, especially cruel treatment. To everyone and each individually, we advise and urge – repent and from today, do not repeat such actions,” – writes Father Giorgi on social media.
At the protest, Maisi.News spoke with Father Giorgi about the dispersal of peaceful citizens and the suspension of EU integration process:
• Father Giorgi, why did you decide to respond publicly?
This is very human – not accepting evil, not accepting attempts at death. Because cruelty, violence – this is a path that leads toward death. This is not a path toward life. Those who await life – those who are on the side of life, for them this is outrageous. I’m talking about life, I have hope for life, I’m talking about another life. I’m talking about life without death, without evil, and I want this to spread around us. Everyone has declared Christianity as a value of life, belief in life – it cannot be compatible when a person condemns another to pain – even to death.
• Christianity holds special significance for Georgians – what would they expect from the prism of those values, from the state?
Today there was a broadcast on Georgian Public Broadcaster. A lady came in and said very precisely that, ‘I want to live in a state where even if one person comes out, they too will be significant to the state’. She expressed the idea of the Gospel, the idea of the Savior – that if you have a hundred sheep, the Kingdom of Heaven, God’s idea, resembles such a shepherd who will leave 99 sheep and go searching for one. A state in which Christianity has such profound importance should be like this – seeking, ensuring no one remains beyond life.
• In the state you described, what expectations would you have from law enforcements?
Law enforcements should be independent, because the state doesn’t need ideologization. A state that is arranged according to democratic principles should have separated branches of government, and every link in the state system should have independence. Law enforcement then acts according to the laws we’ve agreed upon – in such case, it would completely regulate and prevent any violence. If every specific special forces member knew that they are identifiable, that they shouldn’t exceed authority, shouldn’t cross into violence – all this would be regulated by the idea of their autonomy, the existence of their supervisory bodies.
• We touched on personal responsibility. In this situation, how would you assess the dispersal and violence we’ve seen in recent days? Including the horrible footage spread by Teona Chalidze, showing special forces beating a fallen young person in the head.
It’s horrible. Whatever a person is protesting against, there was nothing in this protest to warrant such violence. Perhaps this is indeed because there wasn’t proper reflection on such violence and such cruelty from previous times, proper separation from all this, proper expansion of these themes – how horrible it is, how destructive for those people, for the evildoer who commits this – it’s destructive for them too.
• In your opinion, as a citizen, what should a just state be like?
At minimum, democratic, because a democratic system is closest to what God has intended for us. The state should be based on liberal values, with democratic arrangement, because these values and these concepts imply the dignified equality of all people, everyone’s equality before the law, fair judgment, in disputed matters – all this implies fair courts, equal opportunities for everyone – the abolition of privileges, moreover, the non-recognition of privileges as divine. They understood all this, liberals read all this well from Christian books, from Christian teachings, and arranged a less evil state – such states where evil cannot take root, evil cannot take root there. If evil occurs there – it will receive a strict response. If evil occurs, they process it within their own body and there’s thinking, concern – this is culture, that they process this evil within themselves, how this happened to them. This needs to happen within us – who knows how much we have – from which time, repentable evil committed that needs processing. We keep hiding all this and masking it with our cheerfulness, our singing, our hospitality or something else. And when should we sit down and remove that evil which is within us?
• Since you touched on European states – where will the suspension of the EU path and deviation from Article 78 of Georgia’s Constitution lead us?
To great pressure, to more loss of freedom, to more injustice, to more evil – evil will take root more firmly. Democracy and the European Union are precisely about avoiding this for us – avoiding injustice, avoiding evil for us. We’ll perish, we’ll drown in evil, we’ll drown in injustice – maybe this isn’t foreign to someone and we carry ourselves individually when they kidnap other people’s children, take possession of others’ property, and somehow we were all under fear – but, we don’t want this individual survival – we want this survival, this space to be communal. Therefore, suspending the EU path will lead us to ultimate evil.
