YDK 947

44Giorgi MamardashviliModern Issues of the Religious Life of the AbkhaziaTerritory PopulationA review of the modern situation and problems of Abkhazia territorypopulation are given in the article, as well as the review of thescientific works, articles and theses dedicated to the study of the Abkhazians’religious beliefs.Today a certain part of Abkhazia population is a follower andsupporter of Abkhazian clergy group headed by Dorofei Dbar, who triesto gain autocephaly of the Church of Abkhazia. According to the researchescarried out in near past 55% of respondents belong themselvesto Christians, 17% to Muslims, 14.6% to Atheists and for 7.4%was difficult to attach their faith to any kind of religion, 2% is a followerof the traditional Abkhazian religion. Among ethnic Abkhazians 49.3 %is a Christian, 28.7% Muslim, 2% belong themselves to Pagans and1.2% to traditional Abkhazian religion beliefs. A kind of confusion takesplace. It is a bit difficult to understand what the relations between paganand traditional Abkhazian religion beliefs means. It is easy to supposethat the respondents might have mixed traditional Abkhazian religionbeliefs and Paganism. It is difficult to imagine as well what the Krilov’scriteria was for belonging a certain person either to one or anotherreligious belief. All the more there are different viewpoints among thescientific circles about what the Abkhazian religion is. Some think it obviouslyis Paganism, some think it is monotheistic religion, some – it isa heir of Southwest Asia.Despite of the survey results, it is obvious that the Abkhaziantraditional religion beliefs gained a new meaning: to attach to the traditionalreligion one of the main functions in determining the nationalidentification and the consolidation of the nation. It must be mentionedthat the tendentious attitude of the modern researchers when theystudy traditional religious beliefs of Abkhazians is obvious. They consciouslyignore Georgian influence on the nuances of the traditional