Ilia University hosted an international conference on “Christian Cappadocia and the Caucasus” between 2 and 4 June. A representative of the Georgian Patriarchate joins those of the Catholic, Lutheran and Baptist Churches to greet participants.

Tbilisi (AsiaNews) – Students, professors and members of Catholic communities participated in great numbers to the international conference “Christian Cappadocia and the Caucasus”, organised by the Georgian Catholic Church at Ilia State University (Iliauni) in Tbilisi.

Iliauni Rector Gigi Tevsadze, Catholic Apostolic Administrator Mgr Giuseppe Pasotto, Lutheran Bishop Mgr Hans-Joachim Kiderlen, and Georgian Baptist Bishop Mgr Malkhaz Songulashvili opened the conference, which was held between 2 and 4 June.

A member of the Georgian Patriarchate joined them to greet participants, making the event an important example in ecumenism, in addition to a moment of important cultural debate.

Speakers from Italy, France, Russia, Ukraine and Greece led the reflection, together with their Georgian colleagues, on the importance of the Church’s Cappadocian Fathers like Saint Gregory of Nyssa or Saint Basil the Great.

Three days of seminars ended with a visit to the cave city of Vardzia, on the border with Armenia and Turkey, a large monastic centre dug into the rock that was viewed as the last offshoot of Cappadocia in Georgia.

Organisers were satisfied by the conference, adding that the goal for the future is to “find new ways to involve in a factual and respectful way the Georgian Patriarchate and its academic institutions.”

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