At 12 noon (local time) the ceremony of enthronement of the new Archbishop of Albania began at the Cathedral of the Resurrection of the Lord in Tirana.

As the Archbishop entered the church, those present chanted “worthy” for the successor to the late Archbishop Anastasios.

The ceremony will take place with the participation of delegations from Autocephalous Orthodox Churches, delegations of local Orthodox Churches, officials of the governments of Albania, Greece and other countries.

The Church of Greece and the Archbishop of Athens and All Greece Ieronymos is represented by Metropolitan Justinos of Nea Krini and Kalamaria, while the Minister of National Defence, Nikos Dendias, and the Minister of Education, Religious Affairs and Sports, Sofia Zacharaki, travelled to the Albanian capital on behalf of the Greek government.

Who is the new Archbishop

Archbishop Ioannis, alias Fatmir Pelousi, was born in 1956 in Korytsa, the Orthodox Church of which he served as Metropolitan after his enthronement in 1998.

He has revealed in interviews that during the years of persecution of any religion in atheistic Albania he had an interest in religious matters and even in 1975 was introduced to Christianity from a copy in French of the New Testament given to him by a friend under the pretext of learning French. This was followed by searches in the Central Library of Tirana, where he secretly borrowed books of all religions. The next dangerous step, both for him and his family, in the Albania of harsh persecution, was to join a secret group of Christians who held meetings in various houses in Korica. His baptism, by Father Kosmas, was also done in secret and he received the name John.

After the fall of the communist regime in Albania, he had the opportunity to study at Holy Cross Orthodox Theological School in Boston, with a scholarship established by the Albanian community in America in memory of Bishop Van Noli, and graduated in 1993. At that time, in Albania, Blessed Anastasios had already begun the work of restoring the Church. At the invitation of the prelate, John returned to Albania to help in his important work, and 1994 he was initially ordained a deacon and at the end of the same year a priest by Archbishop Anastasios.

Having a Master’s degree in Theological Studies, the new Archbishop was a lecturer and dean of the Theological Academy of the Albanian Orthodox Church. In 1996 he was appointed director of the Theological School of Durres and at the same time became an archimandrite.

On July 18, 1998 he was elected Metropolitan of Korytsa and was enthroned a few days later.