Albania's Archbishop Anastasios, who revived the country's Orthodox Church after the fall of the communist regime in 1990, has died, the church said on Saturday. He was 95. Anastasios, the Archbishop of Tirana, Durres, and All Albania and head of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania, died in the intensive care unit of a hospital in Athens due to “polyorgan deficiency,” the church said. He had been hospitalized in Tirana on Dec. 30 with a viral infection but was transferred to Athens a few days later after his condition deteriorated.
“His Grace, Archbishop Anastasios, was the rebuilder and revitalizer of the Albanian Orthodox Church, which was literally raised from the ruins after the fall of the atheist regime,” the church said in a statement. “He rebuilt church life from the ground up, built hundreds of churches, established educational and charitable institutions, and formed a new generation of clergy, providing unending and sacrificial service for more than 33 years.”.
Albanian President Bajram Begaj said that Albania had lost its “spiritual leader and a distinguished personality.". “His Grace's legacy will remain alive in the hearts of those honoring and loving him,” Begaj said. Born Anastasios Yannoulatos in Greece in 1929, he arrived in Albania in 1991, immediately after the fall of the communist regime that had ruled the country since the mid-1940s, to resuscitate the country’s Autocephalous Orthodox Church.
