“A candle in front of the Savior” p. 5: Education and love

   Related to the task of restoring the physical church and the understanding of what it means to pray together is the re-formation of understanding the co-responsibility of each person in the Church for the life of the Church. “We have three basic principles that I speak of again and again. The first is local leadership, next local language, and finally local finance. It is only on the last that we have had to compromise. The profound poverty of Albania has required help from outside to rebuild the churches and to undertake projects to relieve suffering. But even in this area we never undertake a project without financial sacrifice from Albanians as well. In order to receive God’s blessing, we have to offer what we have. Only zero cannot be blessed. With a few fish, a little bread, Christ fed 5,000 – but there had to be gift of what little people had.
   “One of the most memorable gifts I received for the diaconia work of the Church came two elderly women whose brother was killed during the Second World War in southern Albania. For fifty-five years these women carefully saved money to be used in some good way in memory of their brother. Fifty-five years! When I met them they presented all the money they had saved – also some flowers. I used the money for our girls’ high school near Gjirokaster and in the same village put the flowers they gave me at the base of a memorial for those who died in the war.”
   Another immediate task was to do all that was possible to relieve suffering in Europe’s poorest country. The Church began to set up clinics in major population centers. There are programs to assist the disabled, a women’s rural health and development program, an agriculture and development program, work with prisoners and the homeless, free cafeterias, and emergency assistance to the destitute. Most of this work is carried out through the Diaconia Agapes (Service of Love), a Church department set up by Archbishop Anastasios in 1992 and led first by Father Martin Ritsi [who now heads Orthodox Christian Mission Center in the US], later by Penny Deligiannis, and now by an Albanian, Nina Gramo Perdhiku, though Penny remains part of the Diaconia staff. These projects have never been simply to benefit Orthodox Christians alone but any person in need no matter what his or her faith – or lack of faith. “We keep working to improve the standards of health care”, said Archbishop Anastasios. “The Annunciation Clinic here in Tirana mow meets the highest European standards. People come from all over the country to use it.”
   Another model project is a dental clinic housed in a large white van that travels from town to town. While accompanying Archbishop Anastasios on a visit the Monastery of Ardenica, we happened to encounter the mobile clinic parked in the field of a nearby village. The archbishop decided not only to stop and greet the many local children waiting in line outside the van but to test the dental chair himself and invite the dentist to inspect his teeth under the bright light. The children watched with delight. Archbishop Anastasios quickly became a beloved uncle. 
   While his official title is Archbishop of Tirana and All Albania, Anastasios has occasionally been called the Archbishop of Tirana and All Atheists. It isn’t a title he objects to. 
   “I am everyone’s archbishop. For us each person is a brother or sister. The Church is not just for itself. It is for all the people. As we say at the altar during each Liturgy, it is done ‘on behalf of all and for all. Also we pray ‘for those who hate us and for those who love us.’ Thus we cannot have enemies. How could we? If others want to see us as enemies, it is their choice, but the Church has no enemies. We refuse to punish those who punished us. Always remember that at the Last Judgement we are judged for loving Him, or failing to love Him, in the least person. The message is clear. Our salvation depends upon respect for the other, respect for otherness. This is the deep meaning of the Parable of the Good Samaritan – we see not how someone is my neighbor but how someone becomes a neighbor. It is a process. We also see in the parable how we are rescued by the other. What is the theological understanding of the other? It is trying to see how the radiation of the Son of God occurs in this or that place, in this or that culture. This is much more than mere diplomacy. We must keep our authenticity as Christians while seeing how the rays of the Son of Righteousness pass through another person, another culture. Only then can we bring something special.”
   I noticed while traveling with him how each day he gives an example of love of non-Orthodox neighbors. To give but one instance, when we visited the Ardenica monastery, one of the very few religious centers to survive the Hoxha period with little damage (it had become a tourist hotel complete with prostitutes), Archbishop Anastasios was approached by a shy man who said, “I am not baptized – I am a Moslem – but will you bless me?” The man was given not only an ardent blessing but was reminded by the archbishop that he was a bearer of the image of God.
   Educational work was another key area of concern, first of all to prepare both men and women for service in the Church. 
   “We are struggling with the problem of the shortage of priests. The young generation was raised in an atheistic climate and after that came the capitalist dream, which made many decide to go to other countries. The scent of money is very powerful. Gradually some people realize money does not bring happiness, that happiness can only come from something deeper. 
   “To develop local leaders, in 1992 we immediately started a seminary, renting a hotel in Durres. What a place it was! Much the time it had no heat, no electricity, no running water. But we were able to overcome the difficulties for several years, until our own seminary building was ready in October 1996. It was suggested we send our seminarians to study in Greece and America, but decided their formation should be here. In order to have a new forest, you plant the trees where they will grow, not somewhere else. Since the seminary was opened, there have been 120 ordinations.
   “It is not easy finding promising candidates. In the Communist time many efforts were made to ridicule the clergy as an uneducated lower class, if not evil people, and still there are people who defame the clergy, though it has become more and more difficult to imagine priests as uneducated. But finding suitable candidates and giving them a good theological education is hard, tiring work.
   “In earlier times the priest was at the center of village and town life – teacher, healer, judge, reconciler, a person who could call things by their true names. We hope in the future something of this tradition can be restored. Not to offend politicians, but the priest is a permanent silent leader. 
   “We need serious young people, capable of leadership, who will realize that being a priest is not a second of third choice and that it is a vocation that can make a enormous difference, no less significant than a physician or engineer.”
   “As you will have noticed, there are not only men but also women at the seminary, perhaps a third of the enrollment. It used to be the vocation of women was mainly in the home, but now they have a public life and the Church must use their gifts. Women exercise another form of priesthood. There are many women who have graduated from the seminary and who are playing an important role in the activities of the Church in Albania – diaconal works of mercy, teachers, administration, mission activity, and so forth. We would have achieved much less without them.”
   In addition to the seminary, schools have been started to meet other needs. A professional school was recently opened in Tirana. In Gjirokaster for several years there has been a high school for boys and one for girls in a nearby town. Eleven kindergartens have been opened in various towns and cities. There are summer camps and many youth programs.
   “For us, our first priority is children. We have opened many kindergartens, nurseries and schools. Our only regret is that we cannot help more young people. We do what we can with the staff and space we can afford. Partly we succeed in our efforts because of help from volunteers – for example Constantine Christomanos, head of the professional school, a highly-motivated man from Greece, who does his service gratis, living from his retirement income, and Sister Athanasia, the interim director of the Annunciation Clinic, who came to help us six years ago and never left.”
   Archbishop Anastasios points out that education is far more than books to read and facts to memorize. The goal must be to help shape people who are not only capable intellectually or skilled in certain specializations, but motivated by respect and love rather than greed and fear. As he says: “God did not give us a spirit of fear but of power. Those who fear God fear nothing else.”
   But Albania is still a country in which fear and greed shape many people’s lives.
   “To get results we need people – holy people – people who don’t change things but change themselves. The question is how do you create such people? Did the old Communist system create holy people? Or the new money-driven system – does it create holy people? It is only the Church that has the power to create holy people – people capable of love and sacrifice, people above vendettas, people capable of forgiveness. Reconciliation is not easy. It needs help from the Church. Forgiveness and reconciliation are an essential part of Christian life – this is what Lent is all about. It gives us the power to forgive the other. More forgiveness, more community!
   “The young generation was educated with systematic Communist propaganda. It was a culture of fear. Look at all the many bunkers littering the country that were built in the Communist era. Each one is like a large skull. When you see many of them near each other, it is like a cemetery of exposed bones. In the Hoxha period, the creation of enemies was essential to maintain the discipline of the people. It was a diabolic method, the formation of a culture of fear. Fear, once learned, is hard to unlearn. Many people still are paralyzed by fear.”