Property problem/ Archbishop Joan: Strategic mistake of the Albanian state

2025-10-22 23:42:00, Aktualitet CNA

Archbishop Joan, on the show Opinion with Blendi Fevziu, spoke about one of the wounds of society, which is the problem with property.

His Beatitude expressed that the properties are a strategic mistake of the Albanian state.

Excerpts from the confession of Archbishop Joan

Blendi Fevziu: So you have a harmony among you. There are two issues that remain problematic in the Orthodox community. The first, the property problem. What is happening with the properties?

Archbishop Joan: This is a problem not only for...

Blendi Fevziu: Of all religious communities, definitely.

Archbishop Joan: And all Albanians, in fact. No, more precisely, this has been a strategic mistake of the Albanian state from the beginning. If they had returned the properties to the religious communities, they would have been more independent. What is the autocephaly that is being talked about?

Blendi Fevziu: Independence...

Archbishop Joan: Economic independence. Or what are the conditions that are given to an autocephaly? Yes. First, you have to have financial independence, to maintain the church. And second, you have to have education, the entire educational infrastructure to create the clergy, the bishops and all of these.

Blendi Fevziu: So that you don't get them from another country.

Archbishop Joan: Because you will be, you will be independent. Now how can you be independent when you don't have any of these? And during these years, two very important things were accomplished, which perhaps people don't notice.

Blendi Fevziu: What are they?

Archbishop Joan: Which are, first, the construction of an educational infrastructure. Yes. Which we opened from the beginning. To study all our candidates in this country. Keeping in mind that if you write...

Blendi Fevziu: Up to the final level?

Archbishop Joan: Up to the university. Yes. For postgraduate studies, you can send them to other countries, because they are more mature, they are...

Blendi Fevziu: They also have an earlier tradition.

Archbishop Joan: That's why, for example, the property issue is not only a legal issue, it is a legal and justice issue. It would also be a national security issue. If they are not independent, they will depend on someone. And the state should have helped a little in this, because it was the state that destroyed the religious communities. The Albanian state destroyed them.

Blendi Fevziu: Yes, even though it was a communist state, yes...

Archbishop Joan: But the state... what does it matter? The state was.

Blendi Fevziu: The state was.

Archbishop Joan: And it should have helped them. And the greatest help would have been to have returned the properties. It was very easy at first. They were dealt with by a decree, yes, and they returned with the same decree. With a decree and the solution ended. But this was not solved. This other one that has gone through... was solved.

Blendi Fevziu: Throughout all this chaos, not only for religious beliefs, but for all Albanians, and it is one of the wounds that is actually damaging Albanian society.

Archbishop Joan: Yes, the destruction of a country's cadastre is the destruction of a country. That's why I call this something strategic for our country. Regulating property from the beginning. And it's also a matter of national security.

Blendi Fevziu: Security, because if it cannot regulate property, a political class that came, which had grown up in the absence of property and without knowing what property is.

Archbishop Joan: And that's why they are suffering the consequences./ CNA