"The Church has tried not to get involved"/ His Beatitude, John reveals relations with politics

2025-10-23 09:48:00, Aktualitet CNA

"The Church has tried not to get involved"/ His Beatitude, John

The Archbishop of Tirana, Durrës and all of Albania, His Beatitude, Joan, was asked about his relations with politics in his interview on the show "Opinion".

His Beatitude, John, stated that a distinction must first be made between politics and political parties.

Regarding politics, the Archbishop said that as long as we live in the city, we are all involved in politics.

While in the partisan sense, His Beatitude expressed that the church has tried not to be involved in the partisan sense, as there are believers from all parties in the Church.

Fevziu : What are your relations with politics?

Archbishop: We need to understand that sometimes politics is confused with parties alone. Even the etymology of the word politics comes from the polis of the city.

Fevziu: Yes, definitely.

Archbishop: As long as we live in the city, we've all been involved in some kind of politics, all of us. But not party politics.

Fevziu: Yes, man is a political being. Politics determines everything, daily life, that's all.

Archbishop: In the party sense, because sometimes here politics is understood only in the party sense. The church has tried not to get involved in the party sense. Because we have believers from all parties in the church. We are not the ones who can determine whether to vote for this party, or not to vote for the other party. And the relationship that we must maintain with local authorities must always be a relationship of cooperation, preserving the independence of both parties, because we will not order them what to do. Often we can give our opinion, but not because we will order them. But, they are elected by the people themselves, we are not the ones who elect them. We respect whom the people elect. Whoever is elected to the municipality, for example, we respect that. This has been the case continuously and this is how it should be, because we do not determine who will be./ CNA