Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili and prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili denounced the violence against the anti-homophobia rally. Ivanishvili said that the incident was neither Georgian nor Christian in character, that the authorities would bring to justice those "who were calling for violence and those resorting to violence", and that any member of the clergy who violated the law should be "held responsible before the law like any other citizen". Saakashvili said the 17 May violence showed that the Georgian state was facing a "threat of theocracy", but that Georgia would never have a "broad problem of religious fundamentalism" and that "not a single institution, including the Orthodox Church, is interested in violence".