The Albanian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church headed by the Archbishop of Tirana, Durrės, and all Albania, Anastasios . It has about 650,000 members in Albania and about 45,000 in related churches in the United States. Its faithful in Albanians include Tosk ethnic Albanians, ethnic Greeks, Serbs, Vlachs and other Slavs.
Summary
The Orthodox Christians of Albania were under the Authority of the Patriarch of Constantinople from the 7th century to the 11th century, when most of the Orthodox Christians in what is now Albania came under the Ohrid Archbishopric. After the Ottoman conquest of Albania and the Balkans, the Orthodox Christians in the European part of the empire were placed under the Patriarch of Constantinople. Albania became politically independent of the Ottoman Empire in 1912, and the Albanian Orthodox church proclaimed its Autocephaly in 1922, which was recognized by the Patriarch of Constantinople in 1937. After World War II, Christianity, along with all other religions, was outlawed and severely supressed by the Enver Hoxha regime. Following the regime's collapse, the Church was reestablished by the Patriarchate of Constantinople in 1991.
History
Christianity arrived in Albania before the 4th century from two directions. The Ghegs in the north of the country became Latin Christians, while the Byzantine tradition was predominant among the Tosk people in the south. But following the Turkish conquest in the 15th century, the majority of Albanians became Moslem. During Turkish occupation, the remaining Orthodox population in Albania came under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.
Albania became an independent nation after the Balkan wars in 1912-1913, and almost immediately a movement for the independence of the Albanian Orthodox Church sprang up. After 1918 this movement was led by Fr. Fan Noli, an Albanian Orthodox priest from the United States. In 1922 an Orthodox Congress meeting at Berat unilaterally proclaimed the autocephaly of the Albanian Orthodox Church. The Greek bishops then fled the country. In 1926 Constantinople offered an agreement that would have led to autocephaly, but the Albanian government rejected it. In 1929, Bishop John Bessarion , with the participation of a Serbian Orthodox bishop, ordained two additional Albanian Orthodox bishops. A synod of bishops was thus formed in Tirana and the church again declared itself autocephalous.
In reaction to this, Constantinople deposed the Albanian bishops, and the Albanian government in turn expelled the representative of Constantinople in the country. Thus a de facto schism was created. But Constantinople recognized the autocephalous status of the Albanian Orthodox Church and regularized the situation on April 12, 1937.
During the interwar period, aside from the Archbishopric of Tirana, there were Orthodox dioceses in Berat, Gjirokastra, and Korca. Greek was still widely used in the liturgy, but a process of translation of the texts into Albanian began in 1930. An Orthodox seminary was founded at Korca in 1937.
The communist revolution of 1945 marked the beginning of savage persecution of all religious groups in Albania. By this time the population was approximately 22% Orthodox and 10% Catholic. A number of influential Orthodox clergy were executed, and in 1949 Archbishop Christopher Kissi of Tirana was deposed. By 1951 all the Orthodox bishops had been replaced by men acceptable to the regime.
The Albanian government eventually took much stronger measures against religion than other governments in Eastern Europe. In 1967 the communist regime announced that all religious edifices in Albania, including 2,169 churches, mosques, monasteries and other institutions, were being closed and that all religious practices were illegal. In the same year, Orthodox Archbishop Damianos of Tirana was sent to prison where he died in 1973.
When the communist government in Albania began to disintegrate in 1990, the long period of religious persecution came to an end. Since no Albanian Orthodox bishops had survived, in January 1991 the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which had granted autocephalous status to the Albanian Church, appointed Metropolitan Anastasios of Androusis, a Professor at the University of Athens, as Patriarchal Exarch in Albania. It was his task to oversee the process of the canonical reconstruction of the autocephalous Albanian Orthodox Church. On June 24, 1992, the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate elected Anastasios as Archbishop of Tirana and All Albania and named three other bishops (also Greek nationals) for the remaining Orthodox dioceses in the country. Although the government did not recognize the appointment of the other three bishops, Anastasios was enthroned the following August. In July 1996 the Ecumenical Patriarchate proceeded to the ordination of the three other bishops it had named for Albania. But the government refused to allow them to enter the country and insisted that ethnic Albanians be appointed to those positions.
The position of Archbishop Anastasios as head of the Albanian Orthodox Church was threatened in late 1994. In October President Berisha stated that the Archbishop had only been appointed temporarily, and the government proposed a new draft constitution which required that the heads of large religious communities be Albanian citizens who were born in the country and who had resided there permanently for at least 20 years. But when the referendum on the new constitution was held on November 6th, it was defeated by 60% of the vote. By December relations between the Orthodox Church and the state had improved, but the position of the Archbishop still seemed uncertain. Tension between the Greek and Abanian governments over the status of the Greek minority in the country complicated the position of the Archbishop, who is an ethnic Greek. The 1989 census indicated that there are just under 60,000 Greeks in Albania, but the great majority of the Orthodox in the country are ethnic Albanians.
The impasse over the appointment of new Albanian Orthodox bishops was resolved in 1998. With the mutual consent of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Orthodox Church of Albania and the Albanian government, two of the previously ordained bishops resigned their offices, and one of them (Metropolitan Ignatios of Berat) was enthroned on July 18th. On the same day, Archbishop Anastasios and Metropolitan Ignatios met in extraordinary session with two representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and elected two new ethnic Albanian bishops: Archimandrite John Pelushi (43 years old) was elected Metropolitan of Korēa, and Fr. Kosma Qirjo (77 years old) was elected Bishop of Apollonia. Thus a full Holy Synod of the Albanian Orthodox Church was formed. The Synod has been composed of only three bishops since the death of Bishop Kosma in 2000.
Since the church was reestablished in 1991, 83 new churches have been built, five monasteries and 72 churches/monuments have been renovated and restored, and more than 140 churches have been repaired, as compared to the original 324 churches confiscated by the communist regime. In March 1992 the Resurrection of Christ Theological Academy was opened in an abandoned hotel in Durrės, where about 60 young men began to study for the priesthood. The seminary moved into newly constructed quarters at St. Vlash Monastery in Durrės in late 1996. When the communist government fell there were only 22 surviving Orthodox priests in the country; only three of them were still alive in 2003. By that time 128 new clergy, all Albanian citizens, had graduated from the seminary. But there is still a severe shortage of priests. A monthly official church periodical, Ngjallia (Resurrection), began publication in October 1992, and in 1997 an Orthodox radio station with the same name began broadcasting.
In North America there are two separate Albanian Orthodox jurisdictions. The Albanian Orthodox Archdiocese in America , which makes up a distinct ethnic diocese within the Orthodox Church in America and has 13 parishes, is administered by Bishop Nikon of Boston. The diocesan chancery is at 523 E. Broadway, South Boston, Massachusetts 02127-4415. In addition, the Albanian Orthodox Diocese in America, which has two parishes, is under the spiritual care of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
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