Azernews.Az

YEREVAN – The Armenian Apostolic Church says its supreme head, Catholicos Garegin II, has reached agreements with Georgia's political and spiritual leaders that will help resolve its long-running disputes with the Georgian Orthodox Church, Radio Liberty reported.

Garegin met with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II at the start of a weeklong visit to Georgia on June 10. The two pontiffs held a more detailed discussion in the presence of high-ranking Armenian and Georgian clerics the following day.

Garegin expressed satisfaction with the meetings as he and Ilia made public statements at the Georgian patriarch's official residence in Tbilisi.

In a separate statement on June 12, Garegin's press office said the two sides agreed that Georgian authorities should finally grant "legal status" to the local diocese of the Armenian Church.

Like Georgia's other minority denominations, the diocese has no official registration and is therefore not treated by the Georgian authorities as a single legal entity.

The statement said the parties also agreed on the need to grant official status to "the Georgian religious community in Armenia."

It was not clear if this referred to Armenia's small ethnic Georgian community or Armenian adherents of the Greek Orthodox faith who were subordinate to the Georgian Church during the Middle Ages.

Ilia quoted Saakashvili as saying that the Armenian Church should have the same status in Georgia as the Georgian Church in Armenia. He said he backed the president's position.

According to Garegin's office, the Georgian side also pledged to preserve several medieval churches previously used by the Georgian-Armenian community "until their return to the diocese."

The statement added that "the issue of the return of the churches will be discussed at the next stage."