Opinion | The conflict between Church and state during a pandemic endangers us all
The Georgian Orthodox Church refusal to budge on a number of rituals that threaten to be vectors for COVID-19 is an escalation of long-simmering conflict between church and state — a conflict that, for the sake of the country, must be put on hold. The young woman gingerly wiped an icon with a dry tissue and lifted her young daughter to kiss it. A medical mask on the child’s face was in the way, so the woman hastily pulled off the child’s mask. It was a Sunday service in Tbilisi’s Sameba Cathe