Abkhazia: Breakaway Church Confronts Its Own Breakaway Bid

By Paul Rimple and Dean C.K. Cox Abkhazia, Georgia 16/9/2011 At the entrance to the cathedral in the Abkhaz capital, Sukhumi, one Saturday this summer, women kissed the hand of the white-bearded Father Vissarion Apliaa, the self-declared “interim bishop of the Abkhaz Orthodox Church.” Devotional items were displayed on a table near the door, including small pictures of the slain Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his family.