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TBILISI, GEORGIA, August 31, 2012 (eurasianet.org): A growing number of Georgians are turning to yoga to shake off the stress of daily life. But their quest for inner calm and smaller waists is generating hostility from the powerful Georgian Orthodox Church.
Over the past two years, yoga has gone from a largely unknown Eastern tradition to a popular fitness routine in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. Georgian National Yoga Federation President Giorgi Berdzenishvili, a passionate practitioner for the past 15 years, called the trend a "dynamic" process that started under former Soviet leader Mikheil Gorbachev's glasnost' policies in the late 1980s.
During the Soviet era, when religious beliefs were discouraged, yoga tended to be viewed as a fringe health-oriented practice, devoid of spirituality, Berdzenishvili noted. But slowly, over the past several years, amid increased Internet usage and travel abroad, yoga has moved into the mainstream in Georgian society.
Today, yoga's popularity is at an all-time high, instructors say. Classes are full, leading to the opening of several new studios in Tbilisi over the past year. This phenomenon has some Georgian Orthodox priests worried, due to yoga's spiritual roots in Hinduism, and its perceived association with Buddhism.
While the Patriarchy, the body that governs the Georgian Orthodox Church, did not respond to requests from EurasiaNet.org for the Church's official position on yoga, dozens of websites devoted to the faith have published articles and blogs that are critical of the practice.
Orthodoxy.ge, a website run by priests at Sioni Cathedral, the former headquarters of the Georgian Orthodox Church, warns the faithful that yoga is full of false "charms" that lure people away from God. In a long entry entitled "Eastern Culture," the priests caution that even people who perform "simple yoga exercises ... gradually develop some spiritual thoughts" (a broad reference to meditation) that are not compatible with Christianity.
Nonetheless, after conversations with priests, National Yoga Federation President Berdzenishvili decided to develop a more culturally sensitive version of yoga practice for use in the federation's classes; one that focuses on fitness, rather than meditation, and does not encourage participants to adopt yoga "spiritual names" or specific forms of dress.