Religious Challenges in the Georgian Socio-Political Environment
Religious Challenges in the Georgian Socio-Political Environment

Summary/Abstract: This study aims to determine which factors drive religious conflict between Georgian Muslims and Orthodox Christians: dogmatic and value differences between the religions or the fear of the dominant religious group that the public performance of religious rituals by the minority will lead to the loss of their dominant position and privileges? The study also aims to analyze the effectiveness of the state's response in the conflict resolution process. The study is based on a qualitative method, namely ‘case study’. The work purposefully selects and studies the high-profile religious conflicts in modern Georgia in 2010-2013, in particular those that occurred in the village of Nigvziani, the city of Kobuleti, and the village of Chela between the local Georgian Muslim and Orthodox populations. The study showed that state policy is less focused on resolving religious conflicts at the root and is primarily focused on appeasement rather thanin-depth resolution. As a result, the study revealed that state institutions are less able to serve as a neutral “arbitrator” in the regulation of religious conflicts.Despite the adoption of numerous laws, decisions, and regulations by the state at the legislative, formalized level, unresolved or difficult-to-resolve issues persist inpractice, hindering mutual acceptance and the perception among ethnically Georgian people of different faiths of themselves as one society. Finally, the research process confirms that the concept of the modern Georgian nation was to some extent based on Orthodox identity, leaving people of other faiths outside the Georgian national identity, and, most of all, the ethnically Georgian but religiously Muslim population.

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