Dutch city wants Georgian floating monastery to leave its harbour

EPA-EFE//ZURAB KURTSIKIDZE
A man carries a portrait of Georgian-born Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin during a service in Stalin's home city of Gori in central Georgia.

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An unusual boat with a tiny makeshift Georgian Orthodox church on its deck has been moored in the small Dutch port city of Vlissingen, but the ship is facing an uncertain future, as the city’s authorities have requested that the individual who is commanding the boat to leave the harbour before the beginning of March.
Named after Georgia’s controversial arch-conservative patriarch, Ilia II, the floating church is looked after by a single priest and two nuns. Father Abibos said that a movable church, located on a ship, is ideal for monastic life.
The city authorities, however, have insisted that the boat must leave the harbour to “better serve fellow members of his faith”.
“Establishing a church in the harbour is not allowed and would be a hindrance to development,” Vlissingen’s council members said in a statement, adding that Father Abibos had already been informed that his ship is no longer welcome to the port.
Alderwoman Els Verhage said the city had been granting permits month by month for the ship’s renovation on the understanding Abibos would soon “sail away to serve fellow members of his faith”.
Abibos says he is racing to have the ship finished by the March 1 deadline and looking for other options, while he and the sisters lodge in Vlissingen, a city of 40,000 in the  Netherlands’ southwest.

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