Religion
See also: Religion in AbkhaziaThe Abkhaz people are principally divided into Orthodox Christian and Sunni Muslim communities but the indigenous non-Abrahamic beliefs have always been strong. Christianity was introduced, in the 6th century, by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, and further enforced under the kings of Georgia in the High Middle Ages. The Ottoman takeover in the 16th century, missionaries such as Sufi preachers and the pressure from the Adyghe tribes (most of whom had converted to Islam) from the North precipitated the decline of Christianity and the region became largely Muslim until the 1860s when muhajirism left Christians in majority.
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Children waving miniature Abkhazian flags
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Parade exhibiting Abkhazian flags
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Abkhaz and Georgian generals
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Conference of Abkhazian nobility in 1839
Read more about this topic: Abkhaz People
Famous quotes containing the word religion:
“The true meaning of religion is thus, not simply morality, but morality touched by emotion.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“It must appear impossible, that theism could, from reasoning, have been the primary religion of human race, and have afterwards, by its corruption, given birth to polytheism and to all the various superstitions of the heathen world. Reason, when obvious, prevents these corruptions: When abstruse, it keeps the principles entirely from the knowledge of the vulgar, who are alone liable to corrupt any principle or opinion.
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—David Hume (1711–1776)
“A religion so cheerless, a philosophy so sorrowful, could never have succeeded with the masses of mankind if presented only as a system of metaphysics. Buddhism owed its success to its catholic spirit and its beautiful morality.”
—W. Winwood Reade (1838–1875)