Hawzah News Agency (Tehran, Iran) – Catholicos-Patriarch of all Georgia, answered the Ayatollah Arafi letter:

To the Head of the Islamic Seminaries of Iran

Mr. Alizera Arafi

We have received your congratulation on the Feast of Nativity and the New Year's Day and your good wishes.

As is known, Georgia has always been a tolerant country, and despite the diversity of religious beliefs, throughout ages Christians and Muslims, likewise the representatives of other traditional religions, have been living peacefully in this land. Our country is a small state, and our strength is based on mutual respect and love for the neighbor.

Within our possibilities, we have been promoting and will promote in the further good-neighborly and friendly relations as within the country so also abroad, and in order to attain this goal we all should work, because the entire world is undergoing a highly difficult stage of development and mutual efforts for gaining peace is indispensable. It is necessary to raise future generations in this spirit.

We wish you that, through God's Providence, this New Year might be the year of peace and hope for you, for our peoples, and the entire world.

Respectfully,

Catholicos-Patriarch Of all Georgia

The heads of the Georgian Orthodox Church