News
Director of the Auschwitz Museum received the St. Grigol Peradze Award
Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński, the Director of the Auschwitz Museum, received the St. Grigol Peradze Award. It was presented during the 21st International Caucasian Conference “Caucasica Antiqua et Christiana” dedicated to St. Grigol Peradze, which took place at the Warsaw University on December 6.
The St. Grigol Peradze Award was established in 2010. It is awarded biennially to individuals whose scholarly work reflects the values upheld by St. Grigol Peradze. The award recognizes distinguished individuals whose life's work serves as a role model for others.
Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński received the award “in recognition of his outstanding contributions to preserving and promoting the memory of the victims of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, as well as spreading knowledge about the life and academic work of St. Grigol Peradze.”
The laudation was delivered by award committee member, theologian, and Orthodox clergyman Father Henryk Paprocki: “Piotr Cywiński, as director of the Museum, cares for the place where St. Grigol Peradze, the patron of our meetings, perished. The committee awarded the prize appreciating your achievements, your life path, and everything you have done to make Auschwitz truly a place of memory and warning.”
“We find ourselves in an exceptionally academic setting connected to the thoughts of Father Peradze, but there is also a spiritual space in Warsaw's Ochota district connected with his thoughts that builds an Orthodox, Christian community linked to the Georgian Patriarchate, with liturgy in Polish. It is a great work, where I have had the opportunity to visit many times and have always been welcomed as if at home. For this, I would like to thank you very much as a Catholic,” said Director Piotr Cywiński upon receiving the award.
“This award has deeply Georgian roots, and these days might be pivotal for the geopolitical situation of Georgia. Someone might say that all this happens coincidentally on these days when this award was bestowed on me as a specific obligation, because that is how such distinctions should be interpreted. Thomists usually say that if something happens by accident, it should be given special attention. Thus, I will strive to fulfill this obligation,” he added.
The opening of the conference on 6 December at 4:45 pm is closely linked to the date and time of Gregory Peradze's death, as recorded in German documents, in the German Nazi camp Auschwitz.
Peradze spent much of his pastoral and scholarly activity in Warsaw, having been invited by Metropolitan Dionysius (Waledynski). He was a professor at the Warsaw University (1933-1939), specializing in patrology and the history of Georgian monasticism, and was multilingual. During World War II, he was a prisoner at Pawiak in Warsaw, from where he was deported to Auschwitz, where he perished on 6 December 1942.
The other laureate of this year's award was Prof. David Muskhelishvili, a member of the Georgian Academy of Sciences.
The award was made by Father Panteleimon Ginturi of Tbilisi, according to a design by David Kolbaia of the Warsaw University. It is modeled on a 10th-century panagia from the Martvili monastery, employing the cloisonné technique used in ancient Georgian art.
The St. Gregory Peradze Award Committee:
David Kolbaia (Chairman of the Committee),
Father Henryk Paprocki,
Bernard Outtier,
Jan Malicki,
Wojciech Materski,
Vakhtang Licheli,
Jost Gippert
