The Orthodox metropolitan Athanasius of Rustavi, in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, has met the president of the Union of Evangelical Baptists in the country, Malkhaz Songulashvili, and presented him with his personal apologies for having exhorted Orthodox believers, during a television broadcast, to “combat and kill” the members of the minority Churches: Baptists, Anglicans, Protestants, Pentecostals and Jehovah’s Witnesses. “We have no need for sects, we are a pure Orthodox nation”, the metropolitan is reported to have said on television, adding: “They must be killed”. According to the Keston press agency, the Orthodox Church of Georgia had expressed astonishment at these attacks by metropolitan Athanasius and had immediately distanced itself from them. In the meantime, some minority Churches have repeatedly complained of “undergoing harassment” in a country in which the Orthodox Church claims to represent 70% of the five million inhabitants. The meeting between metropolitan Athanasius and Malkhaz followed up a letter of apology sent to the central Baptist Church of Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, in which Athanasius wished Malkhaz “long life”, and described him as a “holy man, one of the leaders of a great Church”. At the beginning of this year the president of Georgia, Edouard Chevardnadze, had asked that appropriate measures be taken to protect places of worship after the attack on a Baptist church by a group of supporters of a former Orthodox nun.
