Ex-Priest Released from Jail

Defrocked Orthodox priest Basil Mkalavishvili was released on July 25 from jail early, after serving four years of a six-year jail sentence.

Mkalavishvili was arrested in 2004 and found guilty of masterminding and carrying out organized violence against Jehovah’s Witnesses and Baptist-Evangelists and burning their religious literature. Mkalavishvili was excommunicated in 1995, after he criticized the Orthodox Church leadership for not taking a “radical stance” towards religious minorities.