Aid to the Church in Need: Georgia: The Catholic Orbeliani Institute working between Faiths

Georgia: The Catholic Orbeliani Institute working between Faiths

Posted by ACN News on 24/8/2009, 2:25 pm
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ACN News, Monday, 24th August 2009 – Georgia

"We see ourselves as a bridge between East and West".The Catholic Orbeliani Institute in Tiflis is seeking to help overcome conflicts between faiths

"The southern Caucasus region needs peace. In warfare, everybody is a loser", says Vaja Vardidze, director of the Catholic Orbeliani Institute in Tiflis. His comments come against the background of the recent conflict between Georgia and Russia in August 2008. Dr. Vardidze, a theologian, adds "In Georgia too we have conflicts to overcome. The Catholic Church in my country sees herself as a bridge between the Christian traditions of the East and West, between Catholic and Orthodox Christians". The Orbeliani Institute wants to make a contribution to this task, explains the 38-year-old Georgian during a visit last Thursday (13th August) to the headquarters of the international Catholic pastoral charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) in Königstein, near Frankfurt in Germany. "We want to adopt a scholarly approach and work at a high academic level", he adds.

Vaja Vardidze studied theology in Lublin, Poland and subsequently gained his doctorate in Münster, Germany. For a year now he has been in charge of the Orbeliani Institute for theology, philosophy, culture and history. He is married and has a four-year-old son. The Institute he runs bears the name of the Georgian Prince Sulkhan Saba Orbeliani, who lived in the 17th century and is regarded as one of the most important writers in the country. He was among other things a diplomat and a teacher. He strove for Church unity. Today there are around 50,000 Catholics in Georgia.

Editor’s Notes:

Directly under the Holy See, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity – helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action.

Founded in 1947 by Fr Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An outstanding Apostle of Charity”, the organisation is now at work in about 130 countries throughout the world.

The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, 46.5 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide.

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For more information, contact please contact the Australian office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148.Web: [url=http://www.aidtochurch.org ]www.aidtochurch.org

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