St. George’s Church of Kurmukhi is Still Nailed Shut

The catholic patriarch of Georgia, Ilia II, consecrated priest Ioane Abasashvili for serving in the Azerbaijan Republic, in particular in the Kakhi region, even though St. George’s Church of Khurmukhi is still locked.

It is worth to mention that the local government of the Kakhi region of the Azerbaijan Republic forbids the weekly services held in St. George’s church and locked it. Gabriel Jambazishvili, the priest of this church, has been driven out and the church has been nailed shut.

After this, the Azeri newspaper “ECHO” published a long article on this incident. This article contained comments of the head of media department of the Azerbaijani State Committee on Religious Formations, Igudaev Aliev, who stated that it is not right to declare an old Albanian orthodox church as St. George’s Church.

The Kurmukhi Church of St. George was built in the 15th century in the territory of an old Georgian Region – Hereti. This territory was handed to the Republic of Azerbaijan by the Bolshevik government. We should mention that there is an oral agreement between the Georgian Patriarchate and the President of Azerbaijan that the Kurmukhi Church of St. George will begin holding services again.

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