Language:
English
Year of publication:
2022
Titel der Quelle:
Entangled Religions; Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Religious Contact and Transfer
Angaben zur Quelle:
13,3 (2022) pp. 15
Keywords:
Zoroastrianism
;
Jews History
;
Georgia (Republic) Religion
;
Georgia (Republic) Church history
Abstract:
Persistent images of late antique Caucasia belonging naturally to the Byzan-tine world obscure the isthmus’ deep multi- and cross-cultural condition. They rest on theflawed assumption that shared Christian affiliation necessarily linked Byzantium and Cau-casia. Moreover, such conjectures elide Caucasia’s longstanding integration into the Per-sianate world, a status enduring for centuries after the fourth-century Christianization ofthe Georgian, Armenian, and Caucasian Albanian monarchies. This essay engages the reli-gious dimensions of Caucasia’s cross-cultural fabric through the example of sixth-centuryGeorgia. Before the formation of a Georgian “national” church in the seventh centuryand the accompanying obsession with orthodoxy, Georgian religious life was remarkablydiverse and mixed. But in the fourth and fifth centuries, the longstanding dominance ofZoroastrianism—particularly in hybrid local forms—was being eclipsed by various confes-sions of Christianity. Manichaeism and Judaism also had a visible presence. While thereis much we do not know about actual Jewish, Manichaean, and Zoroastrian communitiesin late antique Georgia, surviving Georgian texts offer valuable, if occasional, glimpses oftheir existence. And they deploy carefully crafted imaginaries of non-Christian religionsembedded in an increasingly Christian environment.
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