Four religious communities in Georgia – Muslims, the Armenian Apostolic Church, Roman Catholics, and Jews – will receive GEL 6.5 million (around USD 2.4 million) in 2026 under the state budget funding scheme.
The State Agency for Religious Issues announced the allocation, according to which the Islamic Community will receive GEL 4.15 million (USD 1.54 million), the Armenian Apostolic Christian Community GEL 1.1 million (USD 408,000), the Roman Catholic Christian Community GEL 700,000 (USD 259,000), and the Jewish Community GEL 550,000 (about USD 204,000).
These four religious groups have received state funding since 2014, following an initiative launched during then-Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili’s first term. The funding is intended to partially compensate for the material and moral damages inflicted by the Soviet totalitarian regime. Their total funding increased by GEL 1 million in 2024, from GEL 5.5 million to GEL 6.5 million.
Meanwhile, the country’s largest religious institution, the Georgian Orthodox Church, enjoys a special status and important privileges under the 2002 constitutional agreement with the state, receiving GEL 25 million (about USD 9,278,000) from the state budget annually.
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