Azerbaijan
Delegation of US Mormons meet with Aliyev as first church opens in Baku
Azerbaijan’s presidential administration said the meeting highlighted the country’s history of religious tolerance.
Religion
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Armenia
Sevdaliza’s performance cancelled in Armenia following uproar from religious circles
Coca-Cola Music Fest announced that it had cancelled Sevdaliza after an uproar online.
Azerbaijan
Baku holds controversial pseudo-historical conference in Rome about Christianity in Azerbaijan
The conference has been accused of promoting a politically motivated misrepresentation of Armenian history.
Armenia
Display of pre-Christian Armenian statue leads to concerns of ‘evil ritual’
The planned display of a statue of a pre-Christian Armenian goddess in Yerevan has prompted online criticism on religious grounds. The head of Anahit, a major pre-Christian Armenian goddess of fertility and healing, is being loaned to Armenia’s History Museum for six months by the British Museum. On Monday, History Museum director Davit Poghosyan said the statue’s display at the History Museum would begin on Armenia’s independence day this year, 21 September. It will be part of an exhibi
Georgia
Mob led by Georgian Orthodox priests threatens local imam over Friday prayer
Georgian Orthodox priests in southwestern Georgia led a mob of 200 people in an attempt to break into the house of a local imam to disrupt Friday prayer. The mob attempted to break into Imam Merab (Yusuf) Mikeladze’s house in Adigeni in Georgia’s Samtskhe-Javakheti region on Friday. Batumelebi reported that Mikeladze had been holding Friday prayers at his house for the past ‘few years’, which some in Adigeni, including members of the Orthodox clergy, protested. Footage of the incident
Azerbaijan
Leading Azerbaijani theologian dead at 48
Haji Shahin Hasanli, a leading Azerbaijani theologian and imam, died early Thursday morning, reportedly of a heart attack. News of Hasanli’s death was first shared on his Facebook page. Hasanli was one of the most influential religious figures in the country. Serving as an imam at the Mashadi Dadash mosque in Baku, he was also an authorised representative of the Caucasus Muslims Board. The theologian’s funeral took place at Mashadi Dadash mosque later on Thursday. Haji Shahin Hasanli
Analysis
Datablog | Does religion make Georgians happy?
While research internationally suggests a link between religion and people’s happiness, does the same stand true for Georgia? The connection between religion and happiness has been explored in a wide variety of studies, with data pointing to the religious being happier in many countries. However, data from the ISSP survey on religion, which was conducted in Georgia in early 2020, suggests that there is relatively weak evidence of religiosity being tied to happiness in Georgia. To explore wh
