Eulogios Kourilas

Eulogios Kourilas Lauriotes ( gr, Ευλόγιος Κουρίλας Λαυριώτης, sq, Evlogji Kurila) (1880–1961) was a bishop of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania. He was the Orthodox metropolitan bishop of Korçë (Korytsa) in Albania between 1937 and 1939, and a professor of philosophy and author on religious matters. He later became one of the leaders of the Northern Epirus movement, propagating that Greece should annex southern Albania.

Life

Eulogios Kourilas Lauriotis was born in the village of Ziçisht (Zititsa, in Greek)Εκδόσεις: Οι Αμπελώνες του Άθω.
Μυλοπόταμος (Greek) (then Ottoman Empire, today in Albania) in 1880. He either belonged to the Greek community of Albania, or was a local Aromanian. Italian journal '' La Civiltà Cattolica'' claimed that he was of Albanian origin. He himself confirmed that his family's roots were located in the settlement of Mount Gorilla in Greece, which his ancestors left at the beginning of the 19th century and settled in the wider area of Koritsa where they founded the village of Kurila. During his youth he was attracted by ascetic and monastic ideals and joined the monastic community of Mount Athos. He graduated from the local Athonite School (1901) and the Phanar Greek Orthodox College in Istanbul. He continued his studies in the Philosophy department of the University of Athens, where he acquired his Ph.D. in Humanities. He continued studies in Germany. Kourilas also participated in the Greek Struggle for Macedonia and during the Balkan Wars (1912–1913) he was in charge of 100 armed men, among them many priests, that fought for Greece in the area of Chalkidiki.

After an agreement with the Albanian authorities, in 1937, the Ecumenical Patriarchate chose a number of highly educated religious personalities for key positions in the recently declared as autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania. Among them where Panteleimon Kotokos as metropolitan of Gjirokastër and Eulogios Kourilas as metropolitan of Korçë. When the communist regime of Enver Hoxha came to power in Albania in 1945, he was declared an " enemy of the state" and was deprived from the Albanian citizenship. By then he was already living in Greece where, parallel to his academic work, together with Panteleimon Kotokos became the heads of the ''Northern Epirus Central Committee'' propagating that parts of southern Albania, known among Greeks as Northern Epirus should be awarded to Greece.
He became professor at School of Philosophy of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1935–1937) and of the University of Athens (1942–1949).Weitzmann Kurt
Sailing with Byzantium from Europe to America: the memoirs of an art historian
Editio Maris. 1994. , p. 134.

He donated a significant part (10,000 volumes) of his library to the University of Ioannina.Μαίρη Ζαγκλή-Μπόζιου
Γενικός Κατάλογος Αρχείου
. Πανεπιστήμιο Ιωαννίνων. Τμήμα Ιστορία και Αρχαιολογίας. p. 13 (Greek)

He died in 1961, Stratonike, Chalkidiki.

Works

Eulogios Kourilas wrote several historical, philosophical and theological books in Greek. His main works are (titles translated from Greek):
* ''History of Ascetism'' (1929)
* ''Catalogue of Kausokalyvia codices'' (1930)
* ''Albanian studies'' (1933)
* ''Gregorios Argyrokastritis'' (1935)
* ''Moschopolis and its New Academy'' (1935)
* ''Heraclea Sacra'' (1942) (title in Latin)
* ''Hellenism and Christianism'' (1944)
* ''Patriarchic History'' (1951).

References

External links

Bibliography of Eulogios Kourilas
googleboks

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kurilla, Evllogji
1880 births
1961 deaths
People from Devoll (municipality)
Bishops of the Albanian Orthodox Church
20th-century Eastern Orthodox bishops
19th-century Albanian writers
20th-century Albanian writers
19th-century Greek writers
19th-century male writers
20th-century Greek writers
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens alumni
Academic staff of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Academic staff of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
People associated with Philotheou Monastery