Gjergj Suli (1893–1948), also referred to as At Gjergj Suli was an

Albanian Orthodox The Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania ( sq, Kisha Ortodokse Autoqefale e Shqipërisë), commonly known as the Albanian Orthodox Church or the Orthodox Church of Albania, is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church. It declared its autoce ...

cleric and martyr.

Biography

Gjergj Suli was born in

Lekël Lekël ( sq-definite, Lekli) is a community in the Gjirokastër County, southern Albania. At the 2015 local government reform it became part of the municipality Tepelenë. Lekël was one of the Albanian Christian villages in the possession of the ...

village, Vilayet of Yannina,

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

today modern southern

Albania Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...

. His surname suggests his family may have had

Souliote The Souliotes were an Orthodox Christian Albanian tribal community in the area of Souli in Epirus from the 16th century to the beginning of the 19th century, who via their participation in the Greek War of Independence came to identify with the ...

origin and came from that region. He took his first studies in his village school, and later attended the

Greek language Greek ( el, label=Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy (Calabria and Salento), southern Al ...

Zosimea The ''Zosimaia'' School ( el, Ζωσιμαία Σχολή, ''Zosimaía Scholí'') of Ioannina (in Epirus) has been one of the most significant Greek middle-level educational institutions (high schools) during the last period of Ottoman rule in th ...

gymnasium in Yannina. In 1922, he immigrated to the

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

, where he spent 12 years in Boston, Massachusetts, and

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. He was

ordained Ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart and elevated from the laity class to the clergy, who are thus then authorized (usually by the denominational hierarchy composed of other clergy) to perform va ...

a priest in US after attending a religious school. Suli had close relations with

Fan Noli Theofan Stilian Noli, known as Fan Noli (6 January 1882 – 13 March 1965), was an Albanian writer, scholar, diplomat, politician, historian, orator, Archbishop, Metropolitan and founder of the Albanian Orthodox Church and the Albanian Orthodox ...

, both being between Orthodox clerics and activists of

Vatra, the Pan-Albanian Federation of America Vatra ('' en, The Hearth'') is an association of Albanian Americans, created in 1912, that has historically protected the rights of the Albanians in the United States, as well as has endeavored in lobbying with the United States Congress about the ...

. Suli returned to Albania in 1934, where he started working as a priest in his native village, after that in other villages as Labovë, Tërbuq, Hundkuq etc. He was an opponent of the Italian regime established in Albania after the

invasion An invasion is a military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory owned by another such entity, generally with the objective of either: conquering; liberating or re-establishing con ...

of 1939. He was also skeptical about the

bolshevist The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...

ideas which spread during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. As a person with a broad culture and knowledge of several foreign languages, Suli kept correspondence with many people outside Albania, many of them being Vatra activists. His vast correspondence was one of the pretexts use by the Communist authorities which accused him of being an informer of foreign Intelligences. He was arrested in 1946, and after that suffered for several months the

Gjirokastër Gjirokastër (, sq-definite, Gjirokastra) is a city in the Republic of Albania and the seat of Gjirokastër County and Gjirokastër Municipality. It is located in a valley between the Gjerë mountains and the Drino, at 300 metres above sea le ...

prison. He was executed by a firing squad on January 28, 1948. Furthermore, his personal library and correspondence letters were destroyed. The Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania commemorates his death anniversary as a cleric with a broad culture and who during all his lifetime worked with devotion for the Word of God.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Suli, Gjergj Members of the Albanian Orthodox Church Eastern Orthodox Christians from Albania 1893 births 1947 deaths People from Janina vilayet People from Tepelenë Albanian expatriates in the United States Executed Albanian people People executed by Albania by firing squad 20th-century Albanian people

Biography

See also

References