Anastasios Yannoulatos

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Anastasios Yannoulatos (2012)

Anastasios Yannoulatos ( Greek Αναστάσιος Γιαννουλάτος , Albanian  Anastas Janullatos ; born November 4, 1929 in Piraeus , Greece ) is Archbishop of Tirana , Durrës and all of Albania and as such the head of the autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania .

Life

Anastasios Yannoulatos grew up in Greece. While he was studying theology, he began working with young people in the Orthodox Church. In 1961 he joined the World Council of Churches through the Orthodox youth movement .

He was ordained at the age of 33 and went to Uganda as a missionary , where he learned Galla and Swahili . It was a great disappointment for him when he had to give up this job because he was critically ill with malaria . In 1972 he became professor of the history of religion at the University of Athens and was ordained bishop on November 19, 1972 in recognition of his theological work, particularly in the field of missiology.

In 1981 his health was restored to the point that he was able to travel to Africa again, this time due to an internal crisis in the African Church as the incumbent Archbishop of the Diocese of East Africa. His work there extended to Kenya , Uganda and Tanzania , with a particular concern for promoting the local leadership of the Church. After ten years he returned to the University of Athens, from where he was sent to Albania in July 1991 by the ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos I to see what was left of the Orthodox Church after Enver Hoxha's communism . His main task was to find a suitable candidate for a bishop, but few priests had survived, all of them old and mostly in poor health.

In the same year he was nominated as Archbishop of Albania himself - a task that he did not hesitate to take on, since he had envisaged a peaceful retirement of life with lectures at the university and scientific evaluation of the material collected in Africa. He made the condition that he had to be accepted by the Albanian people as well as by the ecumenical synod and the Albanian government - all three conditions were met and on July 4th 1992 he was installed as head of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania .

His official title is Archbishop of Tirana and all of Albania , but he has also been called Archbishop of Tirana and all atheists and has not refused this title - his church is open to everyone, regardless of belief.

Archbishop Anastasios is also heavily involved in ecumenism . From 2003 to 2009 he was vice-president of the Conference of European Churches , from 1984 to 1991 he was chairman of the World Mission and Evangelism Commission of the World Council of Churches , and from 2006 to 2013 one of the presidents.

In June 2006, Archbishop Anastasios in Albania was the subject of heated debates and came under political pressure. It was triggered by two scandals triggered by Orthodox priests: On the one hand, some priests had illegally demanded fees for sacred acts from the faithful; on the other hand, a large number of human bones were found in a priest, which he had exhumed for unexplained reasons. The archbishop was then accused of lacking control over his clergy. Albanian nationalists took this as an opportunity to demand the resignation of the Greek Anastasios in order to be able to replace him with an Albanian bishop.

On December 24, 2017, Yannoulatos was officially granted Albanian citizenship by the head of state, Ilir Meta .

Awards

In 2020, Anastasios Yannoulatos was awarded the Klaus Hemmerle Prize in Aachen .

literature

  • Luke Veronis: Archbishop Anastasios, Modern-day Apostle. In: International Journal of Missionary Research , 1995.
  • Luke Veronis: A brief history of Archbishop Anastasios. In: Missionaries, Monks, and Martyrs: Making Disciples of All Nations. Minneapolis 1994, ISBN 1-880971-00-3 .

Web links

Commons : Anastasios (Yannoulatos)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Janullatos merr nënshtetësinë; Jehonë në mediet greke, Kotzias përshëndet vendimin. Top Channel , accessed December 27, 2017 (Albanian).
  2. ↑ Awarding of the Klaus Hemmerle Prize 2020 , February 14, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Yannoulatos, Anastasios
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Janullatos, Anastas (Albanian); Γιαννουλάτος, Αναστάσιος (Greek)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek clergyman, Archbishop of Tirana, Durrës and all of Albania
DATE OF BIRTH November 4, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Piraeus , Greece