[File photo, InTime News]
The late Archbishop Anastasios of Albania made an invaluable contribution to Orthodoxy and has left an indelible mark not only on Albania “but in every corner of the earth where Hellenism lives and breathes,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said in a tribute.
“Today, the diaspora in Albania, the homeland and Hellenism as a whole are in mourning at the passing of Anastasios,” the prime minister said.
“He was both a spiritual leader and an active servant of mankind and his rights. Sometimes as a helper of the children of Africa and sometimes as a supporter of the Greek students who resisted the dictatorship,” the premier continued, describing Anastasios “as a pioneer of the Church in Albania” and “the pioneer for the interests of our national community” there.
While the archbishop’s “voice may have been silenced, it will forever broadcast messages of life and peaceful coexistence,” he added.
Anastasios, who revived the country’s Orthodox Church after the fall of the communist regime in 1990, died Saturday morning, aged 95, in the intensive care unit of Evangelismos hospital in Athens due to organ failure after a number of weeks of illness.