:mrgreen: 
If only they had a jurisdiction in America!
Orthodoxia I Thanatos!
Rostislav Mikhailovich Malleev-Pokrovksy
PS There are NO Georgian uniates!!!
PPS This is whom ROCOR should be seeking rapproachment with!
http://www.byzcath.org/bboard/ultimateb ... 1;t=001327
FROM CATHOLIC WORLD REPORT
TREATY EFFORT COLLAPSES (ORTHODOX CHURCH RETAINS MONOP0LY)
The Catholic Church failed in a bid to become the second religious community to gain legal status in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, when the government abruptly cancelled plans to sign an agreement with the Vatican.
Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran had arrived in Tbilisi for the signing ceremony, which had been set for Sept 19th. The event was seen by the Vatican as the crowning product of months of careful diplomatic preparation. But the government withdrew from the proposed agreement at the last minute, under heavy pressure from Orthodox leaders.
Catholic officials stressed that the Church needs the agreement. "For the past decade they kept saying a law on religion would be adopted which would grant recognition, but it never happened," a Catholic official in Tbilisi told the news-service. "That was the reason for the agreement."
With the failure to conclude the treaty - which would have given the Catholic Church and its 50,000 faithful legal status in Georgia - the Georgian Orthodox Church remained the only religious community in the country with formal legal status. In his weekly radio interview on Sept 22nd, President Eduard Skevardnadze expressed his regret that the agreement had not been signed, and promised a religion law would be adopted to regulate the legal status of all faiths in the country.
The Georgian government's refusal to sign the agreement came after a sustained campaign by the Orthodox, which included noisy demonstrations outside the nunciature in Tbilisi and at the airport as Archbishop Tauran flew in on Sept 18th. "For Orthodox Georgia, the signing of an inter-state agreement with the Vatican cannot be
desirable," Patriarch Ilya, the head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, told a presss
conference on Sept 18th. He said he had written President Shevardnadze warning him not to allow the signing to go ahead.
The following day, some 2,000 students waving placards joined demonstrators outside parliament in central Tbilisi, where Orthodox Bishop Zenon of Mnamisis told the protestors that the agreement would have allowed the Vatican to increase its influence in Georgia. State Minister Djorbenadze also addressed the crowd,
telling them that President Shevardnadze, who was gone to Ukraine, had ordered the signing to be cancelled.
On Sept 20th, Bishop Zenon denied the protest had been organized by the Orthodox leadership, calling such claims "immoral". However, one Tbilisi-based Orthodox priest rejected Bishop Zenon's claims. Father Basile Kobakhidze said, "They told them our Church is in danger and that the Catholics want to destroy the Orthodox
belief." He particularly criticized Bishop Zenon's role. "He made fascist statements
saying that they should drive the Catholics out of Georgia! He was the main organizer of the demonstrations."
The Georgian government's sudden about-face provoked a sharp critical statement from Archbishop Tauran on Sept 20th. "It is mainly the Catholic community in this country that will suffer this failed pledge, a community which continues to be deprived of every juridical guarantee, and with whom we express our solidarity. In addition, the Holy See delegation felt gravely hurt by the conduct of the Georgian
Orthodox Church which has spread news that does not correspond to the truth."
END
Comment: Thought folks might find this of interest, altho it affects only the Roman Catholics, since our brothers and sisters of the Byzantine Georgian Catholic Church have no presence in Georgia.