Tbilisi, June 10, 2020
The State Agency for Religious Affairs of Georgia held a special event recently, presenting the first-ever publication of a book from the Old Testament in Georgian Braille.
The presentation of the Book of Genesis was attended by leaders of religious organizations in Georgian and representatives of the Georgian Union of the Blind, who were gifted with the new publication, reports 1tv.ge.
“Unfortunately, the Old Testament hasn’t been printed for the blind in Georgia before, therefore they expressed interest,” explains Zaza Vashakmadze, the chairman of the State Agency for Religious Affairs.
“Naturally, we decided to do it,” Vashakmadze said.
Although the relevant readership is small, the State Agency deemed the translation an important project. “As far as we know, there are only about 60-70 readers of Braille in Georgia. There’s a small number of them, but it was important to implement this project for them,” Vashakmadze concluded.
In November 2016, a Braille prayer book was published in Arkhangelsk, Russia, and in October 2017, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America published three books in Braille: Speaking to God by Archbishop Demetrios, a prayer book, and the text of the Divine Liturgy.
