wfn.org | Albania's Christians Forge Bridge Across Balkans Conflict

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

30-August-1999 
99292 
 
    Albania's Christians Forge Bridge Across Balkans Conflict 
 
    by Jerry L. Van Marter 
 
GENEVA - By reaching out to help Muslim victims of the Kosovo crisis, 
Albanian Christians have forged bonds of friendship and respect that may 
eventually contribute to peace and reconciliation in the troubled Balkans 
region, according to the leader of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of 
Albania. 
 
    "The Orthodox Church in Albania was in special difficulty when the 
crisis [over Kosovo] started," Archbishop Anastasios, who has gained an 
international reputation as a moderate and perceptive church leader, told 
ENI in an interview during the meeting of the World Council of Churches 
central committee meeting in Geneva. 
 
    "The Kosovars were blaming the Serbian Orthodox for their suffering and 
were asking what would be the position of the Orthodox in Albania," he 
said. "We were tempted to stay on the sideline in prayer, but then, that 
would not be authentic, since we are obliged to see in the faces of the 
suffering people the face of Christ." 
 
    Such views have won deep respect for the archbishop, who is of Greek 
origin, well beyond his own church and the Orthodox community. 
 
    Sustained by millions of dollars in aid from partner churches in the 
ecumenical movement - "We are a poor church but we are rich in friends" - 
the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania responded, with a wide range 
of relief programs, to the refugees pouring out of Kosovo into Albania. 
 
    Now, Archbishop Anastasios said, "many Kosovars who were formerly 
suspicious of us stop in our churches to give prayers of thanks on their 
way back to their homes." 
 
    The Albanian church plans to send teams of relief workers into Kosovo 
to continue the aid to old and new refugees. This outreach of Orthodox 
Christians to Muslim victims of a devastating conflict crisis had roots 
reaching back to the end of the communist regime in 1991, Archbishop 
Anastasios said. 
 
    "After the coming of democracy, all the religious communities - two 
Christian, Orthodox and Roman Catholic, and two Muslim, Sunni and Bektashi 
- worked together to establish a climate of understanding and 
collaboration," he said.  "Even those outside religion are still our 
brothers and sisters, and this made us more able to act in the crisis." 
 
    Of the 3.5 million citizens of Albania, 65 per cent are Muslim, about 
25 per cent are Orthodox and 11 per cent are Roman Catholic. 
 
    Archbishop Anastasios also spoke out in defense of  the Orthodox Church 
in Serbia which in the mid-1990s was accused of holding nationalistic 
views.  "We know the Serbian church did not support what [Yugoslav 
President Slobodan] Milosevic was doing [in Kosovo]," he said.  "We also 
know that the Yugoslavian leadership was not acting in line with Orthodox 
values - remember, before their actions in Kosovo, they were against the 
church itself." 
 
    Relief efforts by Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania began late 
in 1998 when Kosovar refugees began trickling over the border into Albania. 
"Our assistance to the first 7500 refugees between October and the end of 
the year gave us the experience and confidence that we could help," 
Archbishop Anastasios said. 
 
    So when the trickle turned into a flood, the church started a program, 
Diaconia Agapes (Service of Love), in conjunction with Action by Churches 
Together (ACT), a joint relief agency of the World Council of Churches and 
the Lutheran World Federation. 
 
    The church helped 20,000 ethnic Albanian Muslim and Catholic refugees 
by providing shelter and food, much of it in the homes of church members in 
12 cities in Albania.  Others received assistance in a big camp on the 
outskirts of Tirana, capital of Albania.  Archbishop Anastasios 
particularly praised the efforts of women and youth in local Orthodox 
congregations, who took the lead in packaging food and other relief 
supplies, and helped ensure that aid was delivered to those who needed it. 
 
    The young people, he said, "would also play with the children, bringing 
something far more than food and shelter - they brought joy and hope." 
 
    The care of the church soon spread to local hospitals where more than 
300 babies were born to refugee mothers earlier this year. 
 
    The real tragedy of the Kosovo crisis, Archbishop Anastasios said, "is 
the cultivation of hate that has been sown in the Balkans."  To 
short-circuit the cycle of violence that had engulfed the region "will 
require much patience and the power of God for reconciliation," he said. 
"The only chance is to persuade the Balkan people to live together and to 
become fully integrated with the rest of Europe," Archbishop Anastasios 
told ENI.  "The Balkan people have been together before - during the Roman, 
Byzantine and Ottoman periods - so why can't they be together in the 
democratic period as well?" 
 
    He insisted that religious leaders in Albania - Christian and Muslim - 
were committed to the effort.  "Religious leaders must be faithful and 
bold, both Muslims and Christians believe this," Archbishop Anastasios 
said.  "This is not easy, but who said the easy things are the best?" 

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