Hil Kabashi

Hil Kabashi and his sister Marta (2006)

Hil Kabashi (born February 19, 1941 in Caparce , then Kingdom of Yugoslavia ) is a Roman Catholic bishop . From 1996 to 2017 he was the chairman of the Apostolic Administration of Southern Albania .

Life

Kabashi joined the Franciscan order and spent the novitiate in Kraljeva Sutjeska Monastery in Bosnia . He studied theology in Sarajevo , where he was ordained a priest on May 18, 1969 . He was first active in parish pastoral care, as a chaplain in the Bosnian Bugojno and in Bihać and from 1971 to 1976 in Gjakova in Kosovo. There he was pastor from 1976 to 1979.

Before his appointment to Albania , Kabashi was responsible for the pastoral care of Albanian emigrants in Stuttgart from 1984 to 1997 in the Albanian Catholic Mission. During this time he translated numerous hymns from the Praise of God into Albanian . These found their way into the hymnbook he published for the southern Albanian administration. He still comes to Germany today to support young Albanian Catholics.

Pope John Paul II appointed him on December 3, 1996 Titular Bishop of Turres in Byzacena and Apostolic Administrator of Southern Albania . The Pope personally donated his episcopal ordination on January 6th of the following year. Co-consecrators were the Archbishops of the Curia Giovanni Battista Re and Miroslav Stefan Marusyn .

As bishop for the south of Albania, Kabashi first settled in Fier , where he had a large complex of buildings built for the church in 1999, which initially served as a temporary home for refugees from Kosovo. Kabashi has had its official seat in the port city of Vlora since 2008 .

In the Albanian Bishops' Conference , Kabashi is responsible for questions of the liturgy . The Albanian Greek Catholic Church , which maintains the Byzantine rite , is located in southern Albania.

In October 2005, Kabashi took part in the Synod of Bishops in Rome.

The sister of the bishop, Hilda (née Marta) Kabashi, is a religious and accompanied her brother until she was recalled by her order to Kosovo in 2009 . Today Slovak Franciscan Sisters work in the episcopal residence instead.

In 2017 Giovanni Peragine succeeded Hil Kabashi as head of the administration.

literature

• Markus WE Peters: History of the Catholic Church in Albania from the Paris Peace Conference in 1919/20 to the pastoral visit of Pope John Paul II in 1993 . Dissertation. Bonn 2001, short biography on p. 256 f. (later published under the title History of the Catholic Church in Albania 1919–1993 (Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2003, ISBN 3-447-04784-4 )).

Web links

• Entry on Hil Kabashi on catholic-hierarchy.org
• Former congregation of Father Hil Kabashi, in Stuttgart, with many pictures
• Pastor of the Gjakova parish 1958–2008 (alban.)