A Greek Archbishop of Albanians! The beautiful answer that Anastas Janullatos once gave to Rudina Xhunga
2025-01-25 10:58:55
TiranaPost
Archbishop Anastasios Yanullatos passed away today. He had been at the head of the Orthodox Church for 32 years.
To the question of why a Greek is the archbishop of Albanians, Janullatos once answered beautifully in an interview with Rudina Xhunga, in his only confession for Albanian television.
"At a time when the church was completely disintegrated, the question was how it would be rebuilt again. It was not about going and living in a house. It had to be built from the ruins. The question was who would build this house. The Patriarchate was also asked why they chose this particular person and the answer was: "Not because he is from Greece, but even if he is from Japan, we will choose the one who knows how to do this effort." Because in previous years I had helped churches that were in great need. When I came here I made an effort to find a man to become a bishop and take on this responsibility. There was no one left who met these conditions. I do not want to mention the names of distinguished Orthodox scientists, doctors who I asked to take responsibility for this. But they answered: "We do not know anything about this matter." "They needed a man who would build everything from scratch. It's not about a pilot who would fly a plane, but they had to fix a crashed plane. They didn't need a good driver who would drive a Mercedes, but they had to build a car. That's why they chose me. For me, it was the biggest difficulty. The Orthodox Church can be in Albania, Greece, Russia, Romania. They are not different churches, but it is one church. We believe in one holy, universal and apostolic church. Of course, it matters where a person is born, but what he believes and experiences is more important. In the times of the Balkan turmoil, special emphasis was given to the nationality of different groups. But ultimately the church is one holy, universal and apostolic. When the Church of Albania was Negroid, someone had to help it. My option is not to create a colony of some other church. On the contrary, my effort was to become a living, local church, with a cadre of local Albanian citizens to continue this mission later," said Janullatos.
