Georgia: Renovation of the church of the Armenian Catholic community in Tskhatbila

The church in Tskhatbila before the renovation. @ACN
The church in Tskhatbila before the renovation. @ACN

The activities on the roof of the church in Tskhaltbila looks very dangerous. There are several men standing up there, with very little in the way of safety. The noise of their hammering echoes far across the land. They call out to one another repeatedly across the noise of the building work, giving instructions. Their T-shirts are damp with sweat, their trousers covered in dust. But they do not allow themselves to be distracted, and their full attention is focused on the roofing tiles and on the rafters below them. These men are members of the Armenian Catholic parish of Our Redeemer in Tskhaltbila. With their own hands they are repairing the roof of the church, since the resources they have are nowhere near enough to pay to have the work done. All they have is their own physical strength and skill.

Tskhaltbila is situated close to Alkhaltsikhe, the town with the so-called "tolerance quarter" in the far south of the country right on the border with Turkey. People from many different ethnic groups rub shoulders here peacefully. In fact almost all the close on 50,000 Armenian Catholics in Georgia originally came from this town, although many of them have now moved away to other regions in search of work. It is an area where time seems to have stood still since the collapse of the Soviet Union. For most people the sole source of income is through cultivating their small, now re-privatised, plots of land. The people of Tskhaltbila live in great poverty in fact. The Armenian Catholic community settled here between 1828 and 1830, moving from the south of Armenia to southern Georgia. They are a national and religious minority in the country where the core of the population belong to the Georgian Orthodox Church. In theory, all religions are equal under the law, the parish priest comments, but in practice this is not the case. For in fact the Catholic Church in Georgia does not enjoy equal legal status.

The small town of Tskhaltbila, with around 1,400 people is situated high in the mountains around 4,700 feet (1450 m) above sea level. The capital Tiblisi is around 140 miles (220 km) away. The region here has a harsh mountain climate, in contrast to other regions of Georgia, and the winters are characterised by bitter cold and heavy snowfalls, while the summers are hot and dry. In spring and autumn there is heavy rainfall and it is often dull and grey.

Up until the collapse of the Soviet Union the people of Tskhaltbila all worked on the local collective farm, or else in the factories, coalmines and other companies in the nearest towns of Alkhaltsikhe and Vale. People were reasonably well-off and had a fair level of social security. Not only could they earn a minimum but could even save a little and could for example travel to the seaside for the holidays. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union the standard of living throughout Georgia fell catastrophically. Numerous firms and factories were shut down and thousands lost their jobs. The collective farms were broken up and large areas of them were left to run wild and overgrown.

"To this day the farmers still farm the land with the methods of their grandfathers – with horses, oxen or mules. You could say that agriculture in Georgia has been utterly destroyed. The situation … has been still further destabilised by internal conflicts, for example by the civil war in 1992, and again more or less permanently by the conflicts with Abkhazia and South Ossetia", wrote the parish priest, Father Anatoliy Ivanyuk in a letter to ACN at the beginning of the building work. For the young people there are no prospects locally and so they move away in search of seasonal work in Russia in order to earn a little money somehow and save their families from hunger. "Many of them attempt to acquire Russian citizenship, and when they get this, then they stay there permanently", Father Ivanyuk writes.

The parish church this project relates to was begun in 1883 and completed in 1888. In 1937 the parish priest and his assistant priest were both arrested by the KGB and shot dead for refusing to abandon their priesthood. The church was turned into a club and later into a warehouse. In the mid-1980s a group of devout and determined local Catholics managed to regain ownership of the church from the godless regime, after a lengthy battle (of the legal kind, not a pitched physical battle…). Then in 1990 Cardinal Julian Vaivods appointed Father Anatoliy Ivanyuk as parish priest. Cardinal Julian Vaivods was at that time the Archbishop of Riga in Latvia. At that time the Latvian capital was home to the only Catholic seminary for all the countries of the former Soviet Union.

Father Anatoliy told us how his hard-working parishioners, with professional help, had already insulated the dome of the church, repaired the wooden roof timbers, the stone slates on the walls and the rotten timber in the choir. The floor had been concreted, the iconostasis had been rebuilt and the marble floor repaired. New doors and windows have also been fitted. "I would like to point out that, from the time it was first built up to the year 2000, the church had become progressively destroyed and finally became so dilapidated that when it rained the water fell from the vault of the church onto the heads of the faithful. In the year 2000, thanks to the voluntary sacrifice of the parishioners, we were able to embark on a major renovation programme for our church, and thanks to the very active participation of the parishioners on the renovation and building work, we succeeded in achieving great deal. We obtained financial support above all from emigre members of our parish who were now living in Russia or other countries. Thanks to their generosity we were able to obtain the necessary building materials, such as cement, steel reinforcement, sand, stone, marble, timber boards and beams, lead for the roof, etc", he explained.

Finally, the community had exhausted its resources in this intensive effort, and so Father Anatoly wrote to ACN in 2007 for help to complete the remaining work. They were still without a new heating system and electrical wiring, stairs and the balustrade for the choir loft. "We are turning to you with a big request… to help us to finish off the work", he wrote. "At present we have no one we can turn to for help, and the parishioners cannot give any more, apart from the physical work of their hands".

To know about this and many other similar projects in favour of the pastoral needs of the suffering Church, please contact our national offices.