ARCHBISHOP ANASTASIOS YANNOULATOS OF ALBANIA
(1929–2025)
I consider it at once an honorable and forbidding task to compose an obituary for His Beatitude Archbishop Anastasios, who died in the early hours of January 25, 2025. On January 30, he would be laid to rest behind the magnificent Cathedral of the Resurrection, his pride and joy, in the Albanian capital of Tirana. The charisma of his demeanor, the softness of his tone, the twinkle in his eye, the acuteness of his wit, the breadth of his vision, his keen capacity to listen, the warmth of his compassion—all these made for untold precious recollections and experiences, which have been sealed in my mind and heart from my time as a student and in my ministry as a clergyman.
I always felt that Archbishop Anastasios was larger than life. He had achieved far more than what for any other person might comprise many lifetimes of work with his prodigious academic scholarship, his vast ecumenical service, his exceptional missionary tenure in Africa, and his unparalleled visionary transformation of the Orthodox Church of Albania. Yet, what will arguably long remain most memorable for me were the soft-spoken reflections offered in the form of brief sermons during services inside the dimly-lit chapel at the Convent of St. John the Baptist on the hilltop of Kareas in Athens, where I would walk each day before sunrise as a young student. For all these gifts and for so much more—including the countless visits to his home in Neo Psychiko, where he received guests as if he had absolutely nothing else in the world to do, as well as the frequent encounters and conversations over the years, both in person and by phone—I can never be adequately humbled or sufficiently grateful.
He was undoubtedly a trailblazer. As professor of religion, none but he would teach courses on the importance and influence of the rise of Islam at a time (as far back as the mid-1970s!) when hardly anyone was interested, let alone informed, of its emergence as a global reality and force. Moreover, none could serve as selflessly or successfully in Africa as Anastasios. And, certainly, none could possibly assume the restoration of the church in Albania other than Anastasios. I was present as Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew painstakingly pondered the few potential candidates for that post. It was abundantly evident that only Anastasios would be prepared to risk everything, literally to get his hands dirty, for a position that promised little reward or return. Finally, none could muster the authority and enthusiasm of a man otherwise plagued with physical challenges (including malaria, asthma, and two serious accidents that resulted in permanent damage to his eyesight) yet filled with the vocation and aspiration of spreading the gospel of love and discipleship “to all nations” (Mt 28.19). That was his cherished scriptural verse, which he labelled “The Forgotten Commandment” in one his earliest lectures in 1959, just one year prior to his ordination to the diaconate in 1960. In the published paper by the same title, he observed that “missionary work is not merely beneficial or pleasant, but a commandment and a commission.”
It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that, in honestly assessing the reality of the Orthodox Church worldwide—its strengths and weaknesses alike—few, if any leaders stood out or stood head and shoulders above the rest than Archbishop Anastasios of Albania. He was a pioneer and leader, of whom Orthodox Christians everywhere could justifiably feel proud. Many have written and spoken—and many more surely will—about the words and ways of Archbishop Anastasios. The lines of this eulogy constitute a rudimentary, albeit intimate reflection on what he meant to me as a former student four decades ago and what he has meant for the Orthodox Christianity in the last six decades. Christos Yannaras considered him a “symbol for an entire generation.” I recognize him as a gifted scholar, a humble servant, and a prophetic preacher.
EDUCATION AND SCHOLARSHIP
I was barely seventeen when I first met Anastasios Yannoulatos in the mid-1970s. He was already well-known and well-respected for his solidarity with Athenian students protesting the military dictatorship in Greece and for his support of Cypriot students in the wake of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus during the same period. Before I arrived from Australia, Anastasios had established the Center of Missionary Studies in 1971. In 1972, he was elected associate professor as well as titular Bishop of Androussa, charged with harnessing the theological renewal of official church circles in Greece through diverse programs and publications.
By September of 1976, as I enrolled at the theological school, he had been promoted to full professor, a status he maintained until 1997, when he was proclaimed honorary professor in the history of comparative religion, an academic discipline that he pursued with post-graduate studies in Hamburg and Marburg on a scholarship from the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (1965–1969). His impressive academic résumé contains around 400 studies, including over fifteen books and countless articles, published in international and scholarly journals, in a dozen languages.
His numerous accolades include an extended tenure as corresponding member of the Academy of Athens (1993–2005) and receiving some twenty honorary doctorates from academic institutions. I count it as a rare privilege and blessing to have recommended him for one such academic distinction from Fordham University in 2014.
For me, moreover, the opportunity to translate four of the archbishop’s books (On Africa, On Albania, Coexistence, and Islam) at his personal request was a tangible, albeit symbolical, way of participating in his mission and ministry. In this small way, I felt that I was able to stand silently beside him, supporting from behind the scenes a lifetime of selflessness and sacrifice as he drove and walked long distances through the African deserts and forests; as he endured difficulties and trials to restore and resurrect the forgotten and forlorn church in Albania; and as he literally mesmerized participants attending numerous ecclesiastical and ecumenical assemblies on the power of compassion and coexistence.
MINISTRY AND MISSION
No sooner had I arrived in Athens than Anastasios involved me in several student organizations and missionary agencies, including “Syndesmos” and “Porefthentes [Go Ye].” Soon thereafter, he began periodically visiting Africa for over a decade, whereupon he left permanently for Kenya in 1981, just one year following my completion of undergraduate studies. Still, we remained in close communication and contact throughout his ministry there and subsequently in Albania.
In order to appreciate the fullness of the confidence and conviction entrusted by the Orthodox Church to Archbishop Anastasios through his lifetime, it is helpful to consider him outside of his native homeland Greece and independently of the national Church of Greece, both of which could never contain or limit the breadth of his imagination and industry. It came as no surprise that two of the most senior and historic patriarchates of the Christian East—the Patriarchate of Alexandria and the Patriarchate of Constantinople—assigned to him some of the most demanding, dangerous, and even daring challenges of recent times: 1) the organization and coordination of missionary activities in a rapidly growing East Africa; and 2) the resurrection and reorganization of the Church in Albania. Alongside these responsibilities, at least during the first period, Anastasios retained the general direction of Apostoliki Diakonia, the official publishing and missionary arm of the Church of Greece.
And so it was that, in Africa, the archbishop inspired and supervised the construction of dozens of churches and catechetical schools, medical centers and hospital clinics, youth camps and clergy seminars, as well as educational programs and welfare projects. As head of the sacred Metropolis of Irinoupolis (that spanned Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania), he oversaw the official opening of the Patriarchal Seminary of “Archbishop Makarios III” in Nairobi, which he directed for ten years. Over sixty priests were ordained, while and another forty readers were tonsured during that decade (1981–1991).
Then, in 1992, he was elected Archbishop of Albania by the Holy and Sacred Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the same year as the fall of the communist government in that country. In Albania, Anastasios inspired and inaugurated a dizzying program of reconstruction, establishing a holy synod, a new constitution and seminary; building and renovating hundreds of churches, schools and monasteries; and constructing a candle factory, printing press, kindergartens, youth and welfare centers, a diagnostic medical center, an institute for vocational training, and even a radio station and an aqueduct. Over 450 buildings in all, of which over 150 were new churches, with newly ordained priests to serve them. He nurtured and shaped a young church—self-sufficient and self-sustaining—capable of standing as an equal to the other sister autocephalous Orthodox Churches with centuries of evolution and experience.
The last decades witnessed a church literally raised from ashes and ruins. Of its past, Anastasios noted: “It was a time when there reigned in Albania the breath of Hades. A militant atheism had extinguished consciences, suffocated whatever human life values as most precious: freedom, faith, and love. They assassinated and buried Christ, sealing the tomb for decades with a stone of impenetrable silence. And then they jubilantly announced the death of God. Yet this period was to pass forever. With the words “Christ is Risen” on my lips, I would travel the cities and villages of Albania.”
EVANGELISM AND ECUMENISM
Anastasios was prepared spiritually and intellectually from early childhood and adolescence for his ministry and mission. Yet, in many ways, his evangelical commitment and courage were also shaped by his involvement in the ecumenical movement. Through the 1960s, he was a member of the Working Committee on the International Commission for Missionary Studies at the World Council of Churches, subsequently serving as moderator of the WCC Commission on World Mission and Evangelism in the 1980s, and finally on the Central Committee of the WCC from 1998 to 2006, when he was elected to the presidium of the World Council of Churches. He would state: “I believe we should be present in inter-Christian dialogue, that we should not withdraw to our corner, that we should not label ourselves as some kind of distilled water. There are those who accuse me, claiming that by engaging in ecumenical dialogue, I am somehow betraying my Orthodox beliefs and principles. To those people I respond that Orthodoxy is a precious diamond, which has nothing to fear or lose from exposure to others. In fact, it only shines more brightly as a result.”
It therefore came as no surprise that the first official collection for charitable causes carried out by the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania was in support of the victims in Sarajevo during the 1992–1995 Bosnian War, a gesture of generosity performed irrespective of the religious persuasion or ethnic background of the recipients. Similar humanitarian support was again extended later when hundreds of thousands of dollars and tens of thousands of packages were provided to over 30,000 Muslim victims and refugees from Kosovo. The archbishop surprised, even shocked, many when, in the midst of a period of crisis, he raised money to restore a mosque in the same war-torn region. For Anastasios, coexistence and solidarity do not imply fusion or confusion, tolerance or syncretism. Instead, they signify something far more positive: namely, an attitude of mutual respect and sincere understanding.
CONCLUSION
It has been decades since my student days with my beloved professor, Bishop Anastasios Yannoulatos. Nonetheless, the memory of a clergyman and academic, who was as ambitious to raise the profile of the Orthodox Church worldwide as he was passionate to stand beside the poorest of the poor, never faded from my mind or memory. More recently, I witnessed and admired him during the Holy and Great Council in Crete (2016), where his mere presence and meaningful interventions were capable of turning otherwise depressing discussions into inspirational moments. His words, that “the oil of religion should not be used to fuel the fire of conflict and war, but to soothe souls and heal wounds,” will forever echo in history through the conciliar encyclical.
My sole regret was clashing with Archbishop Anastasios over Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine and especially the Russian patriarch’s contemptible endorsement of the bloodshed, which the latter even justified as holy. Anastasios refrained from taking sides, resorting to prayer for peace in Ukraine and desire for reconciliation between Constantinople and Moscow. For my part, I felt that the archbishop’s experience and stature mandated a more outspoken stance in a conflict where there was a clear oppressor. History will, I suppose, reveal whether his neutrality was indeed the right choice at that particular moment.
For the archbishop, every moment is an invitation and opportunity to evangelize. I still recall the window in his office, which Nicholas Gage described eloquently in the Parade Magazine of the Sunday World Herald (Atlanta, July 27, 2003): “A bullet is suspended in the window of the spartan Tirana office of Archbishop Anastasios, head of the Orthodox Church of Albania—stopped in its flight toward him by the double-glazed pane. It came from a sniper in the 1997 political upheaval that pushed Albania into chaos and almost claimed the archbishop’s life. ‘I keep it there,’ Anastasios would say, ‘to remind me that life is so fragile. We cannot waste a single day’.”
There is no doubt that Anastasios Yannoulatos of Albania lived every day and his entire life to the fullest.
Fr. John Chryssavgis
Archdeacon of the Ecumenical Throne
Executive Director; Huffington Ecumenical Institute at HCHC
This article was written for The Wheel and is reprinted here with permission.
