Georgian priest on Lavra events: Desecration of relics is unforgivable

Fr. Shalva Kekelia. Photo: imedinews

The rector of the Transfiguration Cathedral in Vake (Tbilisi), Fr. Shalva Kekelia, commented to the UOJ on the events in the Lavra, where reserve staff removed reliquaries with the relics of the Venerable Fathers of the Caves from the catacombs and carried out certain manipulations with them.

He said that in Ukraine he has priest friends who have been attacked with weapons, and whose churches have had icons smashed. Fr. Shalva perceives the events in the Lavra in the same context.

“Since the beginning of the Dormition Fast I have not been watching television or social networks. If such a thing happened, it is very bad,” the priest said. “Similar things took place even under the communists – icons and relics were taken out of churches, and we all know in what condition the country was then.”

“The desecration of icons and relics is forgiven to no one. A person who desecrates icons and relics, even through carelessness, commits a grave sin and places himself in a dire spiritual condition,” Fr. Shalva said.

Recall that the Exarch of the Jerusalem Patriarchate in Cyprus, Metropolitan Timotheos of Bostra, stated in an exclusive comment to the UOJ that the manipulations of the Lavra reserve staff with the relics of the Venerable Fathers of the Caves constitute sacrilege, comparable to the crimes of the godless Bolshevik regime.

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