“President” of Unrecognised Republic of Abkhazia Travels to Moscow to Be Baptised

The “president” of the unrecognised pro-Russian Republic of Abkhazia, Badra Gunba, was baptised alongside his wife and two sons at Moscow’s Sretensky Monastery in the Lubyanka district.

This was reported by JAM News.

The Abkhaz politician and his family were baptised by Metropolitan Feognost (Guzikov), a vicar of the Patriarch of Moscow who also chairs the Russian Orthodox Church’s Synodal Department for Monasteries and Monasticism.

Badra Gunba was given the baptismal name Bogdan. The ceremony was attended by Sergei Kiriyenko, First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Russian Presidential Administration and the Kremlin’s designated “overseer” of Abkhazia.

A photograph taken at Moscow’s Sretensky Monastery in Lubyanka shows Gunba alongside members of his family and Kiriyenko himself, prompting some commentators to suggest that Kiriyenko had acted as the Abkhaz politician’s “godfather”.

The event provoked mixed reactions in Abkhazia. Some interpreted it as evidence of the Kremlin tightening its grip on the puppet republic and seeking to expand its influence in the Caucasus. Others attributed it to the internal schism within the republic’s Orthodox Church. According to the Caucasus-based news agency JAM News, “most people believed he should have done this not in Moscow, but in one of Abkhazia’s own churches”.

Abkhazia has experienced an ecclesiastical schism since the early 1990s. Following the 1992–1993 war in Abkhazia, which was instigated with Russian support, all Georgian clergy were forcibly expelled from the territory, including their ruling bishop, Metropolitan Daniel (Datuashvili).

Since the early 2000s, Orthodox clergy in Abkhazia have, in practice, been affiliated with the Russian Orthodox Church’s Diocese of Maykop, although this arrangement is not publicly acknowledged. Officially, the Moscow Patriarchate maintains that it recognises Abkhazia as the “canonical territory” of the Georgian Orthodox Church. In practice, however, the Russian Orthodox Church supports schismatic clergy in the republic. In April 2011, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow appointed a new abbot, Hegumen Yefrem (Vinogradov), to the New Athos Monastery in Abkhazia. Experts believe that Moscow is exploiting the ecclesiastical situation in Abkhazia to exert pressure on the Georgian Orthodox Church and influence its leadership.