Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania
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The Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania ( Albanian Kisha Orthodhokse Autoqefale e Shqipërisë ) is an autocephalous Orthodox Church in the territory of the Republic of Albania . It includes the Archdiocese of Tirana-Durrës with the eparchies (dioceses) Berat , Gjirokastra and Korça .
The country's Orthodox Christians live mainly in the south, as well as in the major cities of Tirana and Durrës . The liturgical language is Albanian. In the area of Saranda in the south and services take into Greek instead.
There is only very uncertain information about the number of church members. They vary between 160,000 and 420,000. The 2011 census showed the number of Orthodox Christian followers in Albania to be around 190,000, which is 6.75% of the population. Before the ban on religion that the Albanian communists issued in 1967, around 20 percent of the population was Orthodox. The head of Albanian Orthodoxy has been Metropolitan Anastasios Yannoulatos , Archbishop of Albania, of Greek descent since 1992 .
About 15,000 Albanians in the US have been organized into two dioceses since 1950, one of which reports directly to the Ecumenical Patriarch , while the other belongs to the Orthodox Church in America .
history
Ancient and Middle Ages
The Christianity spread early in what is now Albania. Durrës (Greek Dyrrachion Δυρράχιον ) is considered to be one of the oldest bishoprics in the world. According to ecclesiastical tradition, the apostle Paul brought Christianity to Illyria ( Rom 15,19 EU ). Saint Astios was bishop of the community of Dyrrachion at the turn of the 1st and 2nd century and suffered under Emperor Trajan (98-117) the martyrdom .
The Albanian areas are located at the interface between East and West Rome and thus also on the border between the Greek and Latin Church . The Council of Nicea placed all of Illyria under the Roman patriarchate in 325. In 431 Eucarius, the archbishop of Durrës, took part in the Council of Ephesus . Due to the division of the Roman Empire, the greater southern part of the country came more and more into the sphere of influence of Eastern Roman church policy, although the metropolis of Durrës was officially subject to the Roman patriarchate until the 8th century. The liturgy in Illyria of those days was shaped by Byzantine. Only in the northern part of Praevalitana was the Roman influence greater; this area was later assigned to the Latin church province of Bar .
In 731 the iconoclastic -minded Emperor Leo III. the metropolis of Durrës of Rome and subordinated it to the Patriarch of Constantinople. During the reign of Leo VI. (886-912) are mentioned in Byzantine sources 15 episcopal seats for the district Durrës.
In 927 the Byzantine Empire had to recognize the Bulgarian patriarchate , and most of the dioceses in the interior of Albania came under its control. Durrës was still controlled by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople. This epoch ended in 1018 with the defeat of the Bulgarian Empire by the Byzantines. Some of the Orthodox dioceses in the south of today's Albania, such as Butrint and Berat, remained subordinate to the autocephalous archbishopric of Ohrid .
The great schism of 1054 only gradually had an impact in Albania. The unity of the metropolitan Durrës remained for the time being. The final separation with competing hierarchies took place in the course of the 13th century.
Ottoman time
After the Ottoman conquest of Albania, Islam was added as the third religion of the Albanians in the 15th century . The Muslims were soon the majority among the Albanians. The Ottomans subordinated all Orthodox dioceses of Albania to the autocephalous Archdiocese of Ohrid, which they patronized for a long time. Due to Turkish pressure, many Christians emigrated from southern Albania to southern Italy in the 15th and 16th centuries and founded their own parishes there . In the country itself, however, a renaissance of the Orthodox Church became noticeable in the 17th century, which, unlike the Catholic Church, was not persecuted by the Turks . Many church ruins have been restored. In 1797 the cathedral of Berat was last rebuilt.
At the beginning of the 17th century the metropolis of Korça was founded, to which the bishops of Kolonia, Deabolis (Devoll) and Selasphoro (Sevdas) were subordinate. This probably took account of the strengthening of the Orthodox Church in the region around Korça and Voskopoja . With the abolition of Ohrid's autocephaly by the sultan, the Orthodox Albanians returned to the jurisdiction of the ecumenical patriarchate in 1766.
The Orthodox Christians on the territory of today's Albanian state were still closely associated with the Greek Church in the 19th century. The clergy were largely of Greek nationality and, in contrast to the Muslims and Catholics, there were many members of national minorities among the Orthodox, primarily Greeks, but also Aromanians and Macedonians. While the Muslim and Catholic Albanians temporarily worked together in the Albanian national movement Rilindja (German: rebirth ), which achieved Albania's independence in 1912, the majority of the Orthodox clergy wanted to bring about a unification of southern Albania with Greece. Nevertheless, it was an Orthodox Christian, Kostandin Kristoforidhi (1827–1895), who was the first to translate large parts of the Bible into Albanian. The first complete translation of the New Testament and the Psalms comes from him.
At the end of the 19th century there were six Orthodox bishoprics (Durrës, Elbasan, Berat, Korça, Gjirokastra and Kolonja) in what is now Albania, all of which were subordinate to the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople and all of them were occupied by Greek officials.
20th century
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The first beginnings of an independent Albanian church organization in the USA emerged among the Albanian immigrants there. They felt oppressed by the dominant Greeks in the Orthodox communities of America. In 1908, the future Bishop of Korça, Fan Noli , was ordained a priest by Plato, the Russian Orthodox Archbishop of New York City . In the same year Fan Noli celebrated the liturgy in the Albanian language for the first time in Boston . In 1919 Noli was appointed bishop of the Albanian Orthodox Church in America, which formed a separate diocese under the Ecumenical Patriarch. With the Balkan Wars of 1912/13 the Greek-Albanian conflict over the Epirus region began . The Greek bishops of the region took sides with their nation, thereby alienating themselves from the Albanian-speaking part of their church people.
After the First World War, national Albanian views became more important within the Orthodox Church, and a movement emerged that sought to remove the Albanian eparchies from the Greek Church. For the time being, however, prevented the Ecumenical Patriarchs Gregorios VII and Constantine VI. the emergence of an autocephalous Albanian Orthodox Church, which the Albanian state also aspired to. In 1921 the four Greek bishops were expelled from the country. The reasons for this were political, but they were also accused of sticking to the Greek liturgical language. An assembly of clergy and lay people in Berat introduced Albanian as the liturgical language in September 1922. In 1929 the Albanian Orthodox Church unilaterally declared itself to be autocephalous and appointed the Archimandrite Bessarion Juvani as its Metropolitan. Other Greek priests and the representative of the Ecumenical Patriarch were expelled after Constantinople declared all Albanian bishops deposed. It was not until 1937 that the Albanian autocephaly was officially recognized by Patriarch Benjamin . In the same year a seminary was established in Korça .
The Italian occupying power tried to persuade Albanian Orthodoxy to join the Catholic Church during World War II . It should unite with the United Italo-Albanian dioceses . The Orthodox withstood political pressure until Italian rule in Albania collapsed in 1943. At that time the Albanian clergy comprised about 440 parish and religious priests.
When the communists came to power under Enver Hoxha in 1944, the church was again suppressed. At that time, the Orthodox believed that they could somehow come to terms with the new regime. At the latest when the communists deposed Archbishop Kristofor Kisi in 1949, this assumption turned out to be an illusion. The Albanian government then elected Paisios Vodica as the new head of the church. The Patriarchate of Constantinople only recognized this interference with church autonomy after Kisi's death in 1958. As early as the 1950s, the regime's pressure on the Orthodox Church increased. One church after another was closed by the authorities, services and the sacraments were increasingly prevented, and priests were imprisoned. Archbishop Damian Kokonesi, elected in 1966, was arrested just a year after taking office and died in prison in November 1973 at the age of eighty.
When Albania was declared an atheist state in 1967 , the church hierarchy and the institutions of orthodoxy were practically destroyed. Now the remaining churches were closed and the last remaining priests were sent to prison. Many were imprisoned in Borsh camp on the coast of the Ionian Sea.
After the fall of the communist regime, public Orthodox services can be celebrated again since autumn 1990.
present
Re-establishment of the hierarchy
The new institutional beginning began in July 1991 with the arrival of Anastasios Yannoulatos , then Bishop of Nairobi . As an envoy from the Ecumenical Patriarchate, he explored what was left of the Albanian Church. Of the 440 priests who had existed 60 years earlier, 22 were still alive. All were old and frail.
In August 1991, Bishop Anastasios convened a church assembly at which priests and lay people from all Albanian dioceses discussed the reconstruction of the church. In the same year Yannoulatos was appointed archbishop of all Albania by the ecumenical patriarch and with the consent of the synod in Phanar as well as the clergy and the Orthodox population of Albania . The government also accepted the appointment. In July 1992 the new metropolitan took office. The choice of a Greek as a metropolitan was a temporary solution, since after the years of persecution among the communists there were no qualified Albanians for the office.
The archbishop and the synod of bishops are responsible for the spiritual direction of the church. There is also the mixed church council, which consists of clergy and lay people and is responsible for economic and administrative questions. The legal basis for the church bodies is the statute of 1950, which was supplemented by the second general church assembly in 1993 and adapted to modern requirements.
In 1997/98 there were disagreements within the church because at that time all Albanian bishoprics were still governed by bishops of Greek origin appointed by the patriarch and Albanians were not represented in the episcopate at all. The government also supported calls for local bishops to be appointed. A solution was found in July 1998: With the consent of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, two of the Greek bishops renounced their office, one of the two, Ignatios, was given the eparchy of Berat instead. Two Albanians were ordained bishops: Archimandrite John Pelushi became Metropolitan of Korça, Kosma Qirjo received the title of Bishop of Apollonia. Together with Archbishop Anastasios Yannoulatos, these three hierarchs now formed the Holy Synod of the Albanian Church.
In November 1998, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew visited the country's dioceses for the first time.
In 2006 three new bishops were ordained: Dhimitri Sinaiti for Gjirokastra , Nikolla Hyka succeeded Kosma Qirjo, who died in 2000, as titular bishop of Apollonia and Andon Merdani received the title of bishop of Kruja . Since then, the Holy Synod of the Albanian Church has six members. In November of the same year the synod adopted a new statute. On April 12, 2007, the church celebrated the 70th anniversary of the award of autocephaly in Tirana with a service.
Spread of the Orthodox
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Until the middle of the 20th century, most of the Orthodox Christians of Albania lived in the southern half of the country. The catchment area of the Orthodox Church began in the north around the Shkumbin River . Little has changed about that to this day. Almost all Orthodox Albanians are Tosks . This was also reflected in the liturgy, the texts of which were written in the Tuscan dialect. As a result of internal migration over the past few decades, the Orthodox community in Tirana in particular has grown rapidly. In some of the larger cities of Northern Albania, such as Kruja , Laç , Shkodra and Lezha , communities also emerged.
Even in their ancestral areas, the Orthodox have been in the minority almost everywhere since the 17th century. The majority of Albanians are Muslim. The Orthodox population dominates only in a few mostly quite remote places, for example in Himara , Saranda , Labova e Kryqit or Voskopoja .
The ethnic minorities living in southern Albania - the Greeks in the Saranda area, the Macedonians on Lake Prespa and the scattered Aromanians - are all Orthodox. Members of these ethnic groups who converted to Islam in earlier centuries quickly assimilated linguistically. The Macedonians have their own church in Pustec (Liqenas) , the Aromanians one in Korça. Only the Greek minority, to which around 60,000 people belong in the area between the cities of Gjirokastra, Himara and Saranda, is of political importance. In some communities in this region the liturgy is celebrated in Greek. In recent years there have been isolated disputes over the liturgical language where the parishes are linguistically mixed. In 1992 the Ambassador of Romania met with the Council of Churches and informed it of his intention to convene a meeting of all Aromanian representatives with the participation of Romanian clergy. He expressed a desire to develop relations between the Albanian Orthodox and Romanian Orthodox Churches . The Aromanian cultural organizations are divided into a pro-Greek and a pro-Romanian direction.
In the 2011 census, 188,992 Albanians said they belonged to the Orthodox Church, which is a percentage of the population of 6.75%. At the time the state was founded in 1912, 20% of the population were still considered Orthodox.
Church building
Between 1991 and 2001 the Orthodox Church opened almost 300 houses of worship. Only around 70 churches were still there as a building and were quickly usable again. Eighty new churches were built and major repairs were carried out on 140, often including building access routes. With this work, with an annual budget of five million US dollars, the Orthodox Church has become a major factor in economic development in many areas. In the rural regions of southern Albania, however, there are still numerous dilapidated churches, including some buildings of cultural and historical value. But even in the usable churches, the Orthodox do not succeed everywhere in holding regular services, on the one hand because there is still a lack of priests, on the other hand because in some places there are no noteworthy communities.
The demographic shifts in Albania have also led to an influx of thousands of Orthodox people to Tirana in recent years. That is why the church built the new Resurrection Cathedral (alb. Ringjallja e Krishtit ) in the center of the capital ; it was consecrated in 2012. In addition to the cathedral, an administrative building for the Holy Synod was also built.
Education, media, social work
In 1992 a theological college was established that is also open to women. Since 1996 this academy has been located in a new building complex near the Shën Vlash monastery near Durrës. Between 1996 and 2001 there were 120 ordinations. Five Albanian monasteries were reactivated, a grammar school was founded and a printing plant was set up. The Church publishes the monthly Ngjallja , the children's magazine Gëzohu and, for students, Fjala, and the English-language news paper News from Orthodoxy in Albania . It operates its own radio station and also has a wood processing company and a manufacture for the manufacture of candles.
The Orthodox Church in Albania engages in numerous charitable activities. Most of them are organized and maintained by the church aid organization Diaconia Agapes . The church operates hospitals, polyclinics, a mobile dental clinic, schools and kindergartens, is active in prison chaplaincy and organizes help for the homeless. The Annunciation Clinic of the Orthodox Church in Tirana is one of the best hospitals in Albania. The church's diaconal activities are for everyone, whether Orthodox Christians, Catholic Christians, Muslims or atheists. During the 1997 crisis , the Church provided emergency aid to 25,000 people and in 1999 it provided care to over 50,000 Kosovar refugees , temporarily closing the seminary to allow students to participate in the refugee work.
liturgy
In the Albanian Church, as in all Orthodox churches, worship is celebrated in the Byzantine Rite . The Chrysostom liturgy is used on Sundays and weekdays, and the Basil liturgy on some major festivals. The liturgical language is modern Albanian. All texts necessary for the worship service were translated from Greek by Fan Noli in the first decades of the 20th century . A revised translation of the Chrysostom Liturgy from 1995 is currently in use. In the United States today, church services are also celebrated in English.
Ecumenism
The Orthodox Church of Albania is the only one in the country to be a member of the World Council of Churches . In this respect, this membership is not of any importance for ecumenical relations in Albania itself. Contacts between the Orthodox and Catholic bishops take place on a regular basis, especially on holidays and exchanges of greetings. In the everyday life of the local Christian congregations, on the other hand, there is hardly any contact across confessional boundaries.
The Protestant churches in Germany support the work of the orthodox aid organization Diaconia Agapes financially.
Archbishops
- Basilios (1922-1928)
- Bessarion Juvani (1928-1936)
- Kristofor Kisi (1937-1948)
- Paisios (Paisi) Vodica (1949–1966)
- Damian Kokonesi (1966–1973)
- Anastasios Yannoulatos (since 1991)
literature
- Konrad Clewing: Nationality and Faith. Voices for and against autocephaly in Albania 1922–1937. In: N. Ukgjini, W. Kamsi, R. Gurakuqi (eds.): Krishtërimi ndër Shqiptarë ; Shkodër 2000; Pp. 303-316.
- Jim Forest: The resurrection of the church in Albania. Voices of Orthodox Christians. Geneva 2002. ISBN 2-8254-1359-3 (Excerpts and pictures from the book at inCommunion.org and orthodoxalbania.org ( Memento from June 16, 2013 in the Internet Archive ))
- Fan Noli: Mesha dhe Katekizma e kishes orthodokse lindore. Shqip edhe Inglisht. Boston 1955.
- Michael K. Proházka : The Orthodox Church of Albania . In: Thomas Bremer , Hacik Rafi Gazer , Christian Lange (ed.): The orthodox churches of the Byzantine tradition . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2013, ISBN 978-3-534-23816-3 , pp. 89-94 .
- Ie. Beduli: Kisha Orthodhokse Autoqefale e Shqiperisë. Gjer në vitin 1944. Tirana 1992.
Web links
- Albanian Orthodox Church website (English, Albanian, Greek)
- Website of Orthodox Albanians in Canada (with liturgical texts in Albanian)
- Brief overview of the history of Albanian Orthodoxy (Italian)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Njoftim për Media. Fjala e Drejtorit të Përgjithshëm të INSTAT, Ines Nurja gjatë prezantimit të rezultateve kryesore të Censusit të Popullsisë dhe Banesave 2011. (Press release. Address by the head of INSTAT, Ines Nurja, during the presentation of the main results of the 2011 population and housing census). (PDF) (No longer available online.) Instituti i Statistics , December 13, 2012, archived from the original on March 26, 2017 ; accessed on January 30, 2013 (Albanian, PDF; 41.4 kB).
- ↑ Statuti i KOASh-it (1950), me shtesat e vitit 1993 ( Memento from June 18, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 699 kB)
- ↑ Nathalie Clayer: God in the "Land of the Mercedes". The Religious Communities in Albania since 1990 . In: Peter Jordan, Karl Kaser, Walter Lukan, Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, Holm Sundhaussen (eds.): Albanien (= Österreichische Osthefte ). Peter Lang, 2003, p. 277–314 ( archives-ouvertes.fr [PDF; accessed on February 5, 2019] p. 26 in the online document).
- ↑ Results of the 2011 census ( Memento from April 25, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), Instat , 2011 (Albanian, pdf)
- ↑ Nathalie Clayer: God in the "Land of the Mercedes". The Religious Communities in Albania since 1990 . In: Peter Jordan, Karl Kaser, Walter Lukan, Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, Holm Sundhaussen (eds.): Albanien (= Österreichische Osthefte ). Peter Lang, 2003, p. 277–314 ( archives-ouvertes.fr [PDF; accessed on February 5, 2019] p. 3 in the online document).
- ↑ Ora News: Inagurohet Katedralja ortodokse Ngjallja e Krishtit . In: Infoarkiv. June 24, 2012, accessed August 20, 2013 (Albanian).
- ↑ Churches help churches, Albania ( Memento from July 23, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
