Patriarchate Denies Accreditation to TV Pirveli and Formula for Sveti-Tskhoveli

The Patriarchate of Georgia did not grant accreditation to journalists of the TV companies TV Pirveli and Formula for the Sveti-Tskhoveli feast day on October 14.

Patriarchate Public Relations Service head Andria Jaghmaidze confirmed the information. According to him, these two television channels will not have accreditation because "journalists of these television channels constantly violated the internal rules despite numerous warnings, arbitrarily leaving the space designated for the media, which is unacceptable and creates problems for the course of the church service".

Nodar Meladze responded to the incident. According to him, despite lengthy communication, as of now (20:00) Andria Jaghmaidze has not provided an order according to which the journalists' accreditations for the event planned for tomorrow were cancelled.

"Such a thing has never happened during the time of Patriarch Ilia II. Journalists have never been denied access to Sveti-Tskhoveli. This is the first Sveti-Tskhoveli where the ban has affected two independent TV companies," writes Nodar Meladze.

According to Meladze, he is interested in what legal basis Jaghmaidze's decision rests on. He further said that in correspondence Jaghmaidze cited as the reason the incident that took place in Martvili on March 8, 2021. At that time, however, at the session of the Synod of Bishops, journalists were, on the contrary, the victims and were injured when a railing collapsed.