Yezidi Spiritual Council

The structure of DSEG consists of two links.

First link

• DSEG members
• Board (sofa) of 7 people
• Head of DSEG (rebar)
• Executive Director
• Temple attendant (mdzhevr)

Second link

• Council of Priests
• Council of Elders
• Cultural Center
• Yezidi Research Center

Since 2011, the organization has been conducting spiritual and educational activities, namely, it organizes language, history and religion courses, as well as pilgrims' trips to Lalesh . Publishes books, brochures and calendars, conducts religious, cultural and educational activities, including daily service and weekly sermon in the temple. With the assistance of the Georgian authorities, since 2014, every year, during the Yezidi holidays, DSEG members visit prisoners of Yezidi origin in prisons ^[2] .

DSEG is a member of the Council of Religions at the Center for Tolerance, acting under the Public Defender of Georgia, and cooperates with the State Agency for Religious Affairs ^[3] .

After the Yezidi genocide in Iraq in 2014, DSEG has been active in raising awareness of the plight of the Yezidi population in Iraq to the public and the world community.

The organization has established friendly relations with the spiritual leaders of different religions, both in Georgia and abroad. DSEG organized meetings of high Yezidi hierarchs with Pope Francis ^[4] , and in 2011 a visit of Yezidi spiritual leaders to Georgia was organized, where a historic meeting with Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia Ilia II ^{[5] was held} . The spiritual delegation of the Yazidis of Georgia under the leadership of Dmitry Pirbari was received by Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia Ilia II ^[6] (2016), Catholicos of All Armenians Garegin II (2015) ^[7] , Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew (2016) ^[8] , Metropolitan of Volokolamsk Hilarion ( 2016) ^[9] , and when visiting the Yezidi temple in 2016, a historical meeting of DSEG members took place with Sistani’s personal representative, Ayatollah Shahrestani ^[10] .

On October 19, 2018, the Spiritual Council of the Yezidis in Georgia organized a visit by the delegation of the Supreme Spiritual Council of the Yezidis to Moscow and a meeting with the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Kirill ^[11] . It was a historic meeting, because after 200 years of Russian-Yezidi relations, the High Yezidi clergy met for the first time with the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church ^[12] .

Specialists associate the success of the organization with the authority of the head of DSEG Dmitry Pirbari. The well-known European scholar and ezidologist, Arthur Ragevich, notes: “The most significant figure of the Yezidi diaspora in the Transcaucasus is the head of the Yezidi Ecclesiastical Council in Georgia, Dmitry Pyrbari, also known as Pir Dima. From a young age, he enjoys enormous prestige: conducts religious ceremonies (feasts, sermons, weddings, and funerals); organizes educational and social events; cares about maintaining good ties with the Yezidi clergy of Iraq, the Georgian authorities and the Church. Thanks to his efforts, the Yezidis have an increasingly strong position in Georgia. Their holidays, which are marked in calendars issued by the state, are taken into account, and memorial plaques dedicated to honorary cultural figures from this community have been established in Tbilisi ” ^[13] . It is noted that the activity of the organization leads to the revival of the Yezidi religion in Georgia ^[13] . Oriental scholar from the University of Bamberg ( Germany ) Majid Hassan conducted a study of the life of the Yezidis of Georgia and called DSEG a revolutionary project in the revival of the Yezidi religion ^[14] .

In 2017, DSEG established the “AMAKDAR” award and presents it to people who help and assist in the preservation and development of the Yezidi religion ^[15] . In the same year, the Ecclesiastical Council of the Yezidis in Georgia submitted a petition to the authorities of the country to allocate a plot of land at the Lotka city Yezidi cemetery in Tbilisi for the construction of another Yezidi shrine ^[16] .

The creation of the DSEG led to the institutionalization of the Yezidi religion in Georgia, which not everyone liked the Yezidi sheikhs and the feasts of Georgia. Previously, they could interpret various postulates of Yezidism at their discretion and were not limited by anything. Over time, these sheikhs and feasts began to oppose the DSEG and actively criticize its activities, trying to return everything to the state it had before the organization was registered ^[14] . DSEG is also criticized by various pro-Kurdish Yezidis, as well as Yezidi members of the Kurdish parties for refusing to pursue their policies towards the Yezidi population of Georgia and for their remoteness from the Kurdish parties ^[14] .