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"I did not want wealth, nor comforts"/ Archbishop Joan: I returned from America because Albania needed it

2026-01-11 20:23:00, Aktualitet CNA

"I did not want wealth, nor comforts"/ Archbishop Joan: I returned

Archbishop Joan spoke this evening about how he made the decision to serve the Orthodox Church in Albania.

The Archbishop, in an interview with journalist Ferdinand Samardzi, said that during the years he spent in America, he was always convinced that he would return to his country as soon as the church opened.

His Beatitude also recounted the conversation he had with Archbishop Anastasios before finally returning to Albania.

"I told my parents too late and they were not against it, but parents' concern is always great and at that time the fear was very great, but I believe God protected us. I often say that something that God opens cannot be closed by people. If the candle is lit inside a person's soul, the love for God is lit, the path will be with the cross but also with the joy of the resurrection. The path does not end at the cross but at the resurrection. At that time, people understood the difficult situation, but the joy that a religious life gives you overcomes that. Even at that time when it seemed incredible that someone would celebrate mass. God protected us because the time was very dangerous. 

I left in 1990, Petro Zheji and I got our passports and initially went to Italy. I had never thought that I would go to America. I went to America as an asylum seeker at that time with the idea that there were two Orthodox theological schools there. There were not many candidates for priests but I told them at that time that if a church was opened in Albania I would return. Father Arturi helped me and I started my studies and it was a very important experience and when I found out that the church had opened I thought about returning.

In America there was no need for me, while the country here did, the things that America could give me I did not want. I did not want wealth, nor comforts. The reason why I wanted to become a monk and a priest was precisely to serve God. The true calling is to respond to the needs of a country as much as you can. Always being realistic and making a contribution. God does not want us to do the impossible. He does that. God wants us to do what is possible.

"While I was a student, a program that we had with Father  Artur was to organize the Fan Noli library, it was a very rich library. But at that time I had heard that an emissary had come to Albania, one of the most respected professors in the seminary where I was, he told me that the one who had come was an old friend of his and told me about the Archbishop's skills and work in Africa as a missionary. And the Archbishop called me. When I told him that as soon as I finished school I would return, he was very happy.  I came at the moment when the Archbishop's enthronement took place for a month in Albania and in 1993 I returned and started working as a lecturer in our seminary in Durrës ," His Beatitude said. /CNA





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