RELIGION AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE SECURITY SECTOR IN GEORGIA
RELIGION AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE SECURITY SECTOR IN GEORGIA

Summary/Abstract: After the independence of Georgia from the Soviet Union in 1991, the Georgian Orthodox Church started to flourish and became the most influential organization/institution in the country according to many current research endeavours conducted in Georgia on this topic. My article offers some legislative basis of the church-state relationship and its effects on the security sector of Georgia. Any kind of critical attitude towards the Georgian Orthodox Church has nowadays a big negative resonance in society, which can be detrimental to the state’s security. This article argues that the church can have a major positive influence as well as a negative one on the security sector in Georgia. In this case, it depended on the one hand on the legislative grounds which regulate the relationship between church and state and, on the other hand, on the fact that the Georgian Orthodox Church (GOC) is the most trusted and, accordingly, influential institution in Georgia.

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