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A
Call for Hope in the Mist of Chaos
Albania has been in the headlines of the news
recently, and many of our friends have been worried. The situation is quite
serious with many people angry, sad, depressed and on the verge of despair.
Many prayers are needed for the people, along
with the government leaders. All the religious communities designated
Sunday, February 16 as a day of prayer for a peaceful and just solution to
the problems facing the country. His Beatitude Anastasios, Archbishop of
Tirana and All Albania, issued a press release which stated the position and
opinion of the Orthodox Church.
Here is a summary for those who are unaware
of the dilemma confronting the country. Over the past two months, the
country has fallen into turmoil by the collapse of a number of “pyramid”
investment schemes. Some experts estimate that as many as 80% of Albanian
families have invested their money in these get-rich-quick investment
companies that were promising up to 100% interest (one company even offered
300%) within a three or four month period. Some of these companies have been
functioning for the past three and four years.
Over the past month, five of the larger companies
have collapsed and partial compensation has been announced for only two of
the firms, whose assets were frozen in state banks. Thus, tens of thousands
of Albanian families have lost all their money and have fallen into a
desperate economic situation.
In response to these problems, many people
have taken to demonstrations and protests in the streets. One of the major
southern cities, Vlore, is in total anarchy at the present moment. Police
have fled the city, allowing for massive violence and destruction. Four
civilians have been killed, including a three-year-old child, one police
officer shot, and hundreds injured. Other cities have also participated in
demonstrations, and the situation is still far from being over.
One of the saddest consequences of all
these affairs is a total air of despair among the people. Many families have
lost their homes. Other families have lost all the money their children have
saved as immigrants over the past years. One student at the seminary shared
how he had lost all his sheep (120 total), which he bought from the money he
saved while working in Greece for two years. He invested all the money and
now has nothing. Another man recently sold his house, lost all the money in
the schemes, and now lives in a 2m x 4m room in a basement of an apartment.
Another older man, whose three sons have been working in Greece for the past
five years, had $40,000 invested in these firms. A rise in suicides has
occurred. Several days ago there was reported a story about a woman from
Pogradec who had invested all her family's money in one of the companies
without her husband’s knowledge. Once the companies fell, she felt she
couldn’t tell her husband and instead stepped in front of an oncoming train.
And the stories continue.
Many foreigners are saying that the people
here were ignorant, naive, or greedy. In some cases this may be true. Other
cases show that it was simply a combination of desperation, hope and
naiveté. People on pension received $40 a month, which isn’t enough to buy
food and pay for electricity over a month. Some of these people saw the
investment firms as their only hope. They sold their homes and invested
money in hope of simply getting a little extra money to supplement their
meager pension. Once they got their return, then they would once again buy a
home, and have a little extra money to survive month by month. Now, they
have no money and no home.
Whatever the story, the bottom line is that
now many people have fallen into total despair. Not only have they lost
their life savings, but they see their country in chaos. Numerous students
are expressing their loss of hope for the future. They were hoping that
Albania was moving forward, and yet now they see it back where it was in
1990- 91. Not only is there economic disaster, but also the threat of
instability in the government, and possible civil war. Many are once again
seeing that their only option is to leave Albania and go to Greece, Italy,
or some other place in Europe or America.
It is so sad to see this utter depression,
to talk with students who at one time were idealistic and hopeful for the
future, but now are resigned to the fact that their only hope is leaving
Albania.
Of course, this is the time for the Church
to identify and empathize with the people, to show compassion and love, to
offer the eternal message of hope, and overall, to loudly proclaim in word
and deed the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the midst of every Cross
the Church always awaits the coming Resurrection.
Please pray together with us that the
Almighty Trinity may empower, enlighten and direct the Church to be a beacon
of hope and light to this country, her leaders and all the people, so that a
just and peaceful solution can be found for the present situation.
For More Hope in
the Future
Throughout these years of democracy, the Orthodox
Autocephalous Church of Albania has tried to stay close to the people,
supporting and comforting them, and speaking to them through the language of
eternal truth. She reminds all people about the duty of solidarity,
integrity, responsibility, zeal for work, forgiveness, and proper selection
of those who seek the trust of the people.
At this critical time, the Church joins in the
great trial of thousands of defenseless people, and is obliged to remind
every side that to transcend this new trial, all forms of misinformation and
violence must be abandoned. Violence gives birth to hatred, and hatred
darkens the mind and heart, leading everyone in a vicious circle of
exploitation and upheaval.
To transcend this crisis, all sides need to have more
calmness, more truth, a greater disposition for reconciliation, more
collaboration, and mainly more justice and love in the effort of
compensation. It is not fair that the victims are the innocent and
uninformed people.
At the same time, we invite believers,
especially on the coming Sunday, February 16, to intensify their prayers
that God enlightens all those who are engaged in these issues to face them
with integrity, sincerity and wisdom. Faith in the God of truth, justice,
power and peace will help find the right solutions and see the future with
more hope.
+Anastasios
Archbishop of Tirana, Durres and All
Albania
Tirana, 12 February, 1997
Diverse
International Effort Supports Church Work
From the beginning of the effort to revive
the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania in 1991, Archbishop Anastasios
has used a variety of international co-workers to labor beside their
indigenous counterparts in serving our Lord Jesus Christ in Albania.
Priests, monks, nuns, laymen and laywomen, teachers, theologians, doctors,
nurses, architects, engineers, iconographers, musicians, and many common
believers all have offered their special talents in whatever way is needed
to build up the Church.
Missionaries from Greece and the United
States provide the majority of long-term missionaries, while short- term
workers have included Orthodox who are Albanian-American, English, Finnish,
Russian, Kenyan and youth groups with members from Poland, Romania, France,
Holland and Spain.
At the present moment, there are 23
Orthodox missionaries working in Albania. This includes three married
priests, two presbyteras, five hiermonks and two monks, three nuns, five
single laywomen, three laymen, and two missionary children. A theologian
from Kenya will be arriving within a month, and four other missionaries will
be arriving during the latter part of the summer. While several of the
missionaries working at the present moment are only here for several months,
the majority have been in Albania for two or more years.
Archbishop Anastasios has given a directive from
the beginning to all these missionaries to work alongside Albanian
counterparts, training, cultivating and aiding the indigenous believers to
take over leadership roles.
Although Orthodoxy is the majority
Christian faith (the last religious census before the communist era showed
approximately 21% of the population as Orthodox, 10% Roman Catholic and 69%
Muslim), Orthodox missionaries are greatly outnumbered by other
missionaries. Presently, there are more than 400 long-term Protestant
missionaries (with possibly more than 1000 short-term workers), and
approximately 150 foreign Roman Catholic priests, with more than 200
missionary nuns and laypeople.
Most of the Orthodox missionaries have been sent
by various monasteries or mission centers, specifically Porefthentes Mission
Center in Athens, the Orthodox Christian Mission Center in St. Augustine,
Florida, USA, St. John the Baptist Monastery in Kareas, and various
monasteries from Mount Athos.
“Diaconia Agape”
Ministry Offers Hope to Suffering World
January 1997 begins the fifth year of
ministry for the “Diaconia Agape” Office and overall social branch of the
Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania. This ministry acts as the social
and developmental arm of the church, expressing God’s sacrificial love for
all humanity, irrespective of race or religion. It works together with
people, especially the poor and marginalized, to develop hope, confidence,
self-initiative and concrete solutions to their critical needs.
During the first two years of its work
(1992-1993), the Diaconia Agape ministry’s focus was on the delivery of
relief aid (food, medical supplies, clothing and assistance) during the
early desperate years of democracy. In 1993 the office delivered 172 tons of
food and milk, along with 2,500 boxes of clothing and blankets to the needy.
Assistance was offered to orphanages and schools.
By 1994, focus of the office slowly began
to shift from relief aid to developmental projects. Programs targeted
agriculture, health, women, youth and the unemployed. St. Luke’s health
clinic in Tirana was founded. A children’s nursery school was established.
An income-generating coffee roasting store began to support the Women’s
group of Tirana. Pilot agricultural and develop-mental projects began.
The office expanded and diversified its outreach
in 1995 by developing seven rural water projects which assisted 131 village
families. A revolving credit program began to help villagers in their
agricultural projects.
Over the past year, many of the projects
expanded into other areas. Nursery schools began in the cities of Durres,
Korca and Kavaja. Construction began for the new Health Center of the
“Annunciation” in Tirana, which will be a five-story, 1800 square meter
building. Along with this health project, other clinics were in the process
of being established in Korca, Kavaja, and Gjirokaster. Other projects
included a dental clinic, eighteen water projects, a pharmacy, a women’s
rural health and development program, a wood processing shop, a vegetable
pickling project, eleven tractor projects, a fertilizer distribution center,
a fuel distribution center, five crop diversification contracts, an
appropriate paper based technology program and ten animal husbandry
contracts. Assistance was offered to an NGO orphan society, the paraplegic
Association, Association of Disable Women, as well as numerous schools, and
a national Church foreign language program.
Since its inception, the Church has
distributed millions of dollars of aid through this Diaconia ministry.
Parial support of the overall work has come from several ecumenical
sponsors, including the World Council of Churches, HEKS of Switzerland,
DanChurchAid of Denmark, Diakonisches Werk of Stuttgart, ICCO of the
Netherlands, Christian Aid of England and Europe Desk of the Netherlands.
Fr. Martin Ritsi, a missionary priest from
the USA, was the director of Diaconia Agape from 1992-95. In October, 1995,
Penny Panayiota Deligiannis, another American missionary, became director.
On the national and regional levels, six full-time Albanian workers serve on
the staff of the office.
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