The leader of the so-called Abkhazian Orthodox Church, registered in the de facto republic of occupied Abkhazia, Besarion Aplia, stated that Abkhazia and its church are independent from the Georgian Church, always have been, and always will be.
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As he says, the fact that the "Church of Abkhazia" canonically became part of the Orthodox Church of Georgia is largely the result of the political events of the twentieth century.
"Soviet doctrine somehow brought it into the Georgian Church. Today, we cannot say that Abkhazians want this. This is absolute madness. I want both Orthodox and non-Orthodox to understand and draw the appropriate conclusion that this is unacceptable. All this, to put it mildly, needs to be corrected," said the priest in an interview with Apsnypress.
According to his statement, today the Orthodox Church of Abkhazia is actually under the wing of the Russian Orthodox Church, while the Orthodox Church of Georgia and the Church of Abkhazia have no connection with each other.
"Thank God that the Lord helped us escape from them. The most important thing today is the restoration of the Orthodox Church of Abkhazia, and we will restore it together with the Moscow Patriarchate," said the cleric.
In the Orthodox Church of Georgia, such statements are evaluated as a distortion of church history, and they say that "Abkhazia is historically a part of Georgia both politically and ecclesiastically."
Abkhazia, known as the Diocese of Tskhum-Abkhazia, is a canonical territory of the Georgian Orthodox Church. However, after the conflict of 1992-1993, the church cannot exercise control over this territory. In 2010, by the decision of the Holy Synod, the governance of the diocese was transferred to the Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia, Ilia II. It should be noted that the Patriarch of Russia, Kirill, did not mention the Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia several times as the Metropolitan of Bichvinti and Tskhum-Abkhazia.
In addition to the "Abkhazian Orthodox Church," there is another unrecognized Orthodox Church in Abkhazia. The "Holy Metropolis of Abkhazia" is headed by Saint Archimandrite Doropei (Dbari).
