By Michel Tarran
(French diplomat Michel Tarran is the Head of the OSCE Presence in Albania)
A tireless craftsman for 33 years of the Resurrection of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania, its primate, Archbishop Anastasios with this predestined name meaning "resurrection" entered for the last time and never to leave the magnificent cathedral built on his initiative, on Tuesday, January 28, 2025, accompanied and carried on his shoulders by the seven bishops of the Albanian synod reconstituted by him and dozens of priests and deacons delivered by him, as well as surrounded by a touched and grateful crowd, throwing flowers in his path and on his open coffin.
To understand the power of this image, we must return to the Albania that Archbishop Anastasios Janullatos found when he arrived in 1991 as Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which asked him to take stock of the situation and lay the foundations for the restoration of the Orthodox Church: for nearly 23 years, this country (which previously had about 65% Muslims, 22% Orthodox and 10% Catholics) had the sad distinction of being the only one in the world declared an “atheist country” not by law, but even by its constitution. All the churches and mosques in the country had been destroyed or converted and put at the service of various institutions, the clergy had been arrested or even executed or at least forcibly returned to various professions, and any religious practice was strictly prohibited.
The last European country to be freed from the communist yoke (and moreover from a totalitarian communism of the Stalinist type that had led it to total isolation and to the brink of famine), only in 1991 would Albania see the end of this anti-religious repression and believers would begin to gather here and there in squares or in ruined churches; everything had to be rebuilt.
With an archive of only two sheets of paper, with a handful of old priests who had survived the persecutions, he knew from the first days of his mission how to identify valuable young men and women, and to entrust them with clerical or other responsibilities. Archbishop Anastas was elected a little later, in 1992, in an extraordinary manner by the synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, to the throne of the Church of Albania, to which it had granted autocephaly in 1937. But the hierarchy of this Church had been annihilated by the atheist power and was not able to propose a candidate for Archbishop itself.
This was the urgent request addressed to Constantinople by the Orthodox believers of Albania, who for a year had realized how fortunate they were to have Bishop Anastasios as a good shepherd; therefore they begged the exarch to remain with them, while he prepared to return to his university activities in Athens. However, he, until the end of his life, had to endure the hostility of various Albanian nationalist politicians and publicists, who did not accept that a Greek should be at the head of one of the main religious communities of their country. Categorically refusing to enter into empty polemics, it was through his work that this deeply humble and peaceful man tirelessly responded to them (“with the stones they throw at us we will build churches” he liked to say), especially through the formation of a hierarchy of autochthonous clergy with Albanian as the liturgical and educational language (with the exception of a few small peripheral communes where national minorities live). This was proof, if one were needed, that he aimed at the revival of the Albanian church.
Paradoxically, Archbishop Anastasios, accused by his Albanian critics of being a "Greek agent" in the service of foreign interests, also had difficulties with some nationalist circles in Greece (where many people still live under the illusion that the Orthodox of Albania are Greek), having to constantly explain to them that he had not come to this country as a messenger of Hellenism but that he should above all devote his efforts to the Albanian-speaking faithful, who were the overwhelming majority of the country. For them, he celebrated mass in Albanian (contrary to what has sometimes been written) even if he preached in Greek (with translation), because although he knew and loved the Albanian language, he did not possess it well enough to improvise and because his poor eyesight, due to an illness he had contracted in Africa, prevented him from reading his sermons and speeches.
This work was immense and can only be understood by remembering the motto that Archbishop Anastasios liked to repeat: “Let us dare to hope!”
During these 33 years, under his direct supervision, 400 churches and chapels were rebuilt and restored, a theological college trained dozens of cadres, many other iconographers and artisans revived the rich Albanian ecclesiastical artistic tradition, and countless works were published. He, who had participated in the creation of Syndesmos, the world federation of Orthodox youth, organized youth summer camps from the first years of his ministry. He also encouraged the participation of women in church life and the creation of circles of Orthodox intellectuals.
Undoubtedly, the church that Archbishop Anastasios left as a legacy is in a much better condition compared to the one that was destroyed in the late 1960s: maintained by poorly educated clergy (until the beginning of the 20th century, Greek prelates served, who were disconnected from the sociological and linguistic realities of their faithful) and then by local bishops forced to make various compromises, with the political leaders of the Albanian state founded in 1912, with the authorities of the Italian occupation since 1939 and then with the communist regime established in 1945, until the latter in 1967 took the aforementioned radical measure.
Referring precisely to these periods before and after the war (as well as to the bad example set by other autocephalous Churches) that some, deprived of religious culture, had difficulty understanding that the Archbishop's Greek nationality was not an obstacle to the fulfillment of his mission, which he saw only from a pastoral perspective.
While respecting the memory of prominent personalities of that period (for example, of Bishop Fan Noli, a prominent figure of the Church, of letters and of politics of the Albanian diaspora, who died in Boston in 1965 and who made an important contribution to the process of translating liturgical texts into Albanian at the beginning of the 20th century), he thought that he should rebuild the Church on new, exclusively religious bases, for the benefit of all Orthodox believers of the country, ethnic Albanians or not, and in parallel abstaining from any attempt to recruit Albanian communities abroad (unlike other autocephalous Churches, which saw themselves with a pastoral and nationalist mission towards the descendants of emigrants around the world).
Archbishop Anastasios had been among the young theologians in Greece who affirmed in the 60s that the Orthodox Church should, on the one hand, renew itself with apostolic vocations and, on the other, stop living for itself, limiting itself to the function of worship. During a twelve-year period, he practically realized this affirmation in East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania), while the second affirmation found application under his inspiration in the wretched Albania that he discovered in 1991. Beyond the reconstruction of churches and the formation of clergy – something that someone else in his country would have done as a priority (although perhaps with less success) – he developed an extraordinary social activity – something that someone else would not have done – concretely realizing his vision of a Church that continues “liturgy after liturgy” for the benefit of everyone, Orthodox and non-Orthodox. With his initiative and the large funds that he had the talent to collect, the Church of Albania opened primary, secondary and higher education institutions, as well as many high-level medical and social institutions, carried out public works (roads, water supplies...), contributed to the reception of 900,000 Kosovar refugees in 1999 (and thus gave these refugees, almost all Muslims, a positive and benevolent image of Orthodoxy).
Albanians are rightly proud of their exemplary religious coexistence and of the fact that their national identity transcends their religious diversity. Archbishop Anastasios (who had complemented his high theological formation with the study of other religions, from Islam to Buddhism and African cults) had placed himself fully in this tradition and, among the many testimonies expressed during the last weeks of his life, while everyone understood, given his age (95 years old) and his weakened health, that he would probably not return from his hospitalization in Athens, the touching message of the Interreligious Council, one of whose founders he had been, which invited believers of every religion to pray for him, can be particularly highlighted. During the national funeral ceremony on January 30, the leaders of the Muslim communities (Sunni and Bektashi) and the entire Catholic episcopate (accompanied by an important delegation from the Vatican) were naturally there in the front row, on one side of the coffin, while the country's highest authorities, from different faiths, were located on the other side.
In the image of this polyglot prelate with great religious and secular erudition, the words of condolence held in his honor were both touching and of a rare intellectual and spiritual level.
The Supervisor of the Archbishop's Throne, Metropolitan Joan of Korça, emphasized that, more than for his extraordinary work of assistance, Archbishop Anastasios attached importance to the attention that every human being should receive; he who "would continue is then to intercede for us and for our Church that he loved so much."
The (Protestant) moderator of the Ecumenical Council of Churches, to whose work Archbishop Anastasios has actively contributed over the decades and who was represented by a large delegation that came to Tirana to honor him, emphasized that his roots in the Orthodox tradition were accompanied by "an exceptionally broad horizon" and that his "great spiritual authority" earned him the respect and love of all.
Speaking also about love (perhaps one of the words that the Archbishop said most often during the service), a niece who came from Athens remembered the simple man among the family and conveyed, with spontaneous applause from the audience, their thanks to the “Albanian brothers” for “all the love they had given him”. The Greek Prime Minister, who came with a large delegation to honor one of the most distinguished sons of his nation, also shared personal memories of this “holy and wise man” who played a special role in the relations between the two neighboring countries. The Albanian Prime Minister, in an inspired and appreciative homage, greeted the one who had come “as a Greek priest” but who had become the “Anastasius of Albania”, who more than any foreigner before him had been “identified” with his second homeland and who, at his request, would be laid to rest forever on Albanian soil (in a crypt under the altar of the cathedral).
The Ecumenical Patriarch, who presided over the ceremony surrounded by a large gathering of patriarchs, primates and representatives of the autocephalous Orthodox churches, recalling the astonishing life of the deceased since birth (he had survived a therapeutic abortion that his mother, affected by tuberculosis, had refused despite the insistence of doctors), expressed sorrow for the “fall of a great column of the Orthodox Church”, committed to the service of its unity (Archbishop Anastasios, who was a strong supporter of the coordinating role of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, played an important role in the Pan-Orthodox Synod convened by it in Crete in 2016) before greeting “his brother Anastasios” for the last time, unable to hide his emotion.
More than ever, on this day one could feel the power and relevance of the words of the Paschal troparion "By His death, He conquered death": precisely because it died under the blows of the atheist regime, the Church of Albania (which was not doing very well even before these persecutions) was revived under the leadership of this charismatic prelate with the name of resurrection, who in ordinary times would not have gone to this foreign land; and this revival has as its center and symbol the impressive Resurrection Cathedral, whose extraordinary architecture is a hymn to the harmonious union of tradition and modernity, a testament to the presence of the Church in the world (the best concert hall in Tirana has been organized on its foundations, where many cultural activities of a high artistic level are held) and, above all, the victorious affirmation of a living Orthodox Church (while some considered it dead in the 30s and 60s, or definitively eliminated twenty years later), an essential component, on the one hand, of the Albanian State and society and, on the other, of the universal Orthodox Church, which for the second time, after the consecration of this cathedral in 2014, had Tirana as its capital for the occasion of the funeral ceremony of Archbishop Anastasios.
