c. 1999 Religion News Service

SUKHUMI, Abkhazia _ Most aspects of life in this tiny, self-declared country are tinged with a weirdness eluding description.

After breaking away from Georgia in 1993 in a 16-month war, Abkhazia declared itself a sovereign state, issued its own stamps, flags and visas, and waited for world recognition. It hasn’t come.

Instead, peace talks with Georgia sputter along, 170 U.N. military observers monitor compliance with a cease-fire and Russian soldiers enforce a blockade that leaves Abkhazia impoverished and frozen in time.

Males between the ages of 16 and 60 are forbidden to leave Abkhazia. Unemployment is endemic. Few people venture out at night when armed gangs of marauders roam Sukhumi, the half-empty capital city that was once a prestigious Soviet resort with 120,000 residents.

One of the few patches of normalcy and dynamism here is the Roman Catholic Church of the Apostle Simon, a 600-member parish that is steadily growing at a time when other congregations are static or withering for lack of crucial outside support.

The recent appointment of a full-time priest to the Sukhumi parish _ the first in more than 80 years _ and plans to send a group of nuns from Poland means the Roman Catholic Church is likely to continue to grow in importance and influence in this historically Orthodox region.”This is a very big step forward. Before, we had a priest come just twice a month. A lot of people would bring their kids for baptisms on Sundays but we would have no priest. Now we will,”said churchwarden Pavel Inglisyan, referring to the Rev. Jacek Jagodzinski.

Jagodzinski, a 32-year-old Pole, is currently living some distance away, across the closely guarded border in the Russian city of Sochi.”At first, I will be based in Sochi and go there for a day at a time. But, eventually, I hope to be there permanently,”said Jagodzinski, a thin man with chiseled features and deepset eyes, during an interview in Sochi.”It all depends on the situation there.” Sukhumi Catholics are hoping that Jagodzinski will initially live in the well-guarded United Nations compound on the southern edge of the city and eventually move into a property abutting the church in central Sukhumi.”Everything depends on how things work out with Father Jacek,”Inglisyan said.”Once he is in place, then the nuns can come. His arrival sets into motion a whole series of things.” Not everyone is happy about Jagodzinski’s appointment. Abkhazia’s senior Orthodox priest, the Rev. Vissarion Pilia declared angrily,”With us, with the Orthodox church of Abkhazia, they have agreed on nothing …. They are doing all this without the blessing of the Orthodox church.” Pilia conceded that the Roman Catholic community was not legally bound to obtain Orthodox permission but said that, like members of other minority denominations, Abkhazia’s Catholics should consult with the historically dominant Orthodox church.

The Catholic churchwarden, Inglisyan, said he found Pilia’s remarks vexing.”I’m very sorry that he says those kinds of things. We have Catholic parishioners who want a priest. Simple as that. Why do we need to ask his permission?” The Abkhaz government is generally tolerant on religious freedom issues although it has banned the Jehovah’s Witnesses for refusing to bear arms. Like the ethnic Georgians who were driven out en masse during the 1992-1993 war, most Abkhaz are at least nominally Orthodox.

Pilia is one of a handful of Orthodox priests left in the breakaway republic of 347,000 people. Abkhazia lies in the jurisdiction of the Georgian Orthodox Church, whose ethnic bishop fled Sukhumi during the war and has steadfastly refused to ordain new priests from Tbilisi where he currently lives.

Like the Orthodox, local Jews also complained of being ignored by Jews outside Abkhazia. Rabbi Mikhail Biniashvili said his small congregation had not received any humanitarian aid for over a year and sometimes turned to the Roman Catholic charity, Caritas, for assistance.

Twice a month, Caritas’ Dr. Alexander Minasyan journeys from Sochi with a carload of medicine that is distributed after Mass to dozens of people of all faiths waiting in the church yard. Minasyan, a Russian citizen who has been treating Sukhumi patients for five years, said he was pleased with Father Jagodzinski’s posting but considered it a delicate matter.”If the Georgians found out we were coming from here, they could protest it. Why should a priest from Russia be serving Georgian territory?,”said Minasyan.”But, on the other hand, the Abkhaz, under no circumstances, would accept a priest from Georgia.” Minasyan added,”The government in Tbilisi doesn’t want to acknowledge any loss of control of Abkhazia. All the same, they’ve lost it.” For at least one Catholic parishioner in Sukhumi, the sensitivities of secular or religious officials in Tbilisi are meaningless.

Yevgenia Shishmanyan, 85, said she survives by supplementing her monthly government pension of less than $1 with daily meals at a Red Cross soup kitchen and with free medicine from the Roman Catholic charity Caritas for her liver and heart ailments.

As an infant, Shishmanyan said she fled present-day Turkey with her family,one step ahead of the genocide of the Armenian people. Ethnic conflicts like that between the Abkhaz and Georgians have only one explanation, she said.”They don’t believe in God. That’s why they ended up like this,”said Shishmanyan, a lean, gracious woman with soulful eyes.”All the same, God will punish them.” DEA END BROWN