His Beatitude Archbishop Anastasios of Tirana, Durrës and all Albania departed from this life on Saturday, January 25, 2025. He was 95 years old. Renowned worldwide for reviving the Orthodox Church in Albania after decades of Communist rule, His Beatitude received the Athenagoras Human Rights Award in 2001.His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew stated that Archbishop Anastasios was “a great personality of our Orthodox Church. In the many years that God gave him, he carried out a missionary work in Africa, scientific work in Athens, where he taught theology and religion at the University of Athens, and ecclesiastical work in Albania for over thirty years. When the atheist regime in Albania collapsed, the Mother Church of Constantinople sent him to resurrect and regenerate the Church of Albania, which had been left in ruins.”
Anastasios Yannoulatos was born in Piraeus, Greece on November 4, 1929. After receiving a degree in divinity from the National University of Athens, where he was a classmate of the future Archbishop Demetrios of America, the young theologian Anastasios Yannoulatos helped to establish “Go Ye,” a movement aimed at rekindling the missionary conscience of the Orthodox Church. Following his ordination in 1964, Father Anastasios set out for East Africa; he celebrated his first Divine Liturgy in Uganda. Consecrated Bishop of Androussa by the Church of Greece in 1972, Bishop Anastasios returned to East Africa in 1980, where he created a strong Orthodox Church by training native leaders. In 1982, Bishop Anastasios officially opened the Archbishop Makarios III Orthodox Patriarchal Seminary in Nairobi, Kenya.
In 1991, after Bishop Anastasios had established a firm foundation for Orthodoxy in East Africa, the Ecumenical Patriarchate elected him Archbishop of Tirana, Durrës and all Albania, calling him to revive the Autocephalous Church of Albania, a Church on the brink of collapse.
His Beatitude was the major force in the miraculous resurrection of the Albanian Orthodox Church. Within just ten years, seventy new churches were built, 65 churches and five monasteries were renovated, and 130 churches repaired by utilizing the talents of local architects, engineers, iconographers and other craftsmen. The Orthodox Church quickly became one of the largest organizations in the country, promoting economic development and creating hundreds of jobs.
During a visit to Albania in November 1999, His All-Holiness said: “For all those who do not believe in miracles at the end of the 20th century, let them come to Albania and see for themselves what has been done here.”
Fr. John Chryssavgis, Archdeacon of the Ecumenical Throne, observed: “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.”
At the time of the conferral of the Athenagoras Human Rights Award in 2001, Dr. Anthony J. Limberakis, National Commander of the Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, stated: “Every year, the Order of Saint Andrew, through the Archdiocese of America, presents the Athenagoras Human Rights Award. It is Orthodoxy’s highest distinction in America. It is named after Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras, Orthodoxy’s foremost ambassador of love, respect, dignity. And the Award is presented to an individual or an organization who best reflects these noble principles of human rights and love for mankind. How fitting it is to honor His Beatitude Archbishop Anastasios with the 2001 Athenagoras Human Rights Award. On behalf of the Order of Saint Andrew, we proclaim ‘Axios!’ to this humble servant of God. The entire Order of St. Andrew is humbled by the opportunity to recognize this modern Orthodox missionary and humanitarian.”
Established in 1986, the Athenagoras Award honors Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras, who served as Archbishop of the Americas for 18 years before being elected Ecumenical Patriarch in 1948. He was universally acknowledged as a visionary leader of Orthodoxy, numbering more than 300 million faithful worldwide, who worked for peace among Churches and people throughout his life.
The Award is presented every year at the Annual Banquet of the Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to a person, group or organization that has consistently exemplified by action, purpose and dedication, concern for the basic rights and religious freedom of all people. Other recipients of the Athenagoras Award have included Russian dissident Yulia Navalnaya, His Beatitude Metropolitan Epiphaniy of Kyiv and All Ukraine, Archbishop Iakovos, President Joe Biden, President George H.W. Bush, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa and Elie Wiesel. |