Archbishop Anastasios, the head of the Albanian Orthodox Church for three decades, has died aged 95 in an Athens hospital after being airlifted to the Greek capital following a virus infection.
Anastasios is credited with having revived the Orthodox Church in Muslim-majority Albania after decades of “atheist” rule and fostered peace between Christians and Muslims.
The Church on Saturday expressed “great pain” following the news of his demise.
Albanian President Bajram Begaj praised the archbishop’s “wisdom, dedication and love for people”, saying he had “contributed to the strengthening and creation of a new path for the Albanian Orthodox faith.”
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Anastasios had left an “indelible” mark through his message of “peaceful coexistence”.
The archbishop had been taken to the Greek capital on a Greek air force plane four days after being admitted to hospital in Tirana with what Church officials called a “seasonal virus”.
The Evangelismos hospital where he was being treated said he died following multiple organ failure.
Anastasios, a Greek national, had regularly received medical care in Athens in recent years.
In November 2020, he was hospitalised there for 12 days with Covid-19, also after being transported on a Greek military flight.
The archbishop was born in Piraeus, a port near Athens, and was known for his charisma, diplomatic skills and soft-spoken manner.
Anastasios revived the Orthodox Church in Albania, which had been undermined by the self-declared “atheist” regime of communist dictator Enver Hodja.
Under the dictatorship of Hodja (1945-1985), seven archbishops, 111 priests and eight nuns of different faiths were imprisoned or executed.
Christians represent 25 percent of the population of Muslim-majority Albania which borders Greece and is home to some 173,000 Orthodox Christians.
Anastasios liked to show the imprint that a sniper bullet had left on his office window in 1997, a year of political and social tensions.
“I keep this window to remind myself that life hangs by a thread. We must not waste it in a single day,” he said in a 2015 interview with the World Council of Churches’ website oikoumene.org.
During his tenure, he built several churches including the huge Orthodox cathedral in the Albanian capital Tirana, and focused on peacebuilding, rescue and health operations, and environmental protection.
He was also seen as a spokesman for the Greek minority in Albania (23,485 people out of a total population of 2.4 million).
