Thousands of Albanians pay last respects to Orthodox Christian Archbishop Anastasios Thousands of Albanians gathered in the capital on Thursday to pay their last respects to Archbishop Anastasios, who revived the country’s Orthodox Christian Church after the fall of the country's communist party in 1990.
Anastasios, who was the Archbishop of Tirana, Durres, and All Albania and also head of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania, died on Jan. 25 in Athens.
Born Anastasios Yannoulatos in Piraeus, Greece on Nov. 4, 1929, he arrived in Albania in 1991, immediately after the collapse of the communists that had ruled the country since the mid-1940s.
There was a somber mood as people massed in the streets around at the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in downtown Tirana for Anastasios who led the church after he reestablished it in 1991.
It took two days for Anastasios's funeral procession to reach the capital by car after it entered the country through its southern border with Greece.
