Azerbaijan, Georgia Revive Monastery Fight

Giorgi Lomsadze

Davit Gareja Monastery, Georgia

Given the Caucasus' long record of ethnic and religious violence, alarm bells are ready to go off any time there is a quarrel over borders or churches in this neck of the woods. Both items made headlines this week in a dispute between Georgia and Azerbaijan, perhaps the friendliest countries in a region where it’s all but de rigueur not to be on speaking terms with at least one neighbor.

Muslim Azerbaijan and Christian Georgia somehow managed to stay friends during the late-Soviet and post-Soviet period, but now the feathers in Georgia are increasingly ruffled after Azerbaijani border guards stopped letting Georgian pilgrims and monks into a section of the 6th-century Davit Gareja monastery, a beautiful complex that straddles the two countries' as-yet-unofficial border.

Rich with ancient Georgian frescoes and writings, the monastery is a major cultural and spiritual hub for Georgians, but some Azerbaijani officials and historians claim that the monastery was created by ancient Albanians, reputed ancestors of the Azerbaijanis.  
   
Georgian politicos, keen to seize a prime PR opportunity ahead of the October parliamentary elections, hurried to the site to deliver some fiery speeches, while disputes raged online and in the media.

The Georgian government has urged restraint, but it also admitted that the Soviet-era demarcation of the then Soviet republics' borders left some two percent of the complex on Azerbaijan’s territory -- a fact duly noted by some Azerbaijani news outlets.

The announcement particularly vexed the Georgian Orthodox Church, the most revered institution in Georgia. Various activist groups announced plans to do their best to defend Davit Gareja.

Seeking to bring the temperature down, Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Nino Kalandadze called on critics to let Georgian and Azerbaijani diplomats get on with their 21 years of talks about where one country ends and the other begins. “We are convinced that the issue… will be resolved in the spirit of traditional friendship and good neighborly relations between the two countries,” Kalandadze said.   Time will tell.