St. Sotir Church, Korçë

40°37′29.7″N 20°47′2.9″E / 40.624917°N 20.784139°E / 40.624917; 20.784139LocationKorçëCountryAlbaniaLanguage(s)Albanian and AromanianDenominationEastern OrthodoxHistoryConsecrated25 October 1925 (original church)Associated peopleHaralambie Balamaci [ro]
Dhimitraq VerigaArchitectureGroundbreaking8 October 1995 (new church)Completed1925 (original church)
2005 (new church)Demolished1959 (original church)ClergyPriest(s)Andrea Zhurka

The St. Sotir Church^[a] or Transfiguration Church^[b] is an Eastern Orthodox^[1] church serving the Aromanian community in the city of Korçë (Aromanian: Curceauã, Curceao or Curciau), Albania. The church was built between 1995 and 2005 with support from Romania. Its first priest was Dhimitraq Veriga, who was ordained priest in Romania and performed religious services in both Albanian and Aromanian. The church has become an important center of cultural activities for the Albanian Aromanian minority, and it has maintained close contact with Romanian state authorities.

There had already been a church, in a different location in Korçë and also with St. Sotir as its patron saint, for the Aromanian community of the town. It was completed in 1925 following decades of fundraising and construction. Its construction started at the initiative of the Aromanian priest Haralambie Balamaci [ro], who was murdered before its completion in 1914. He is today remembered in the modern St. Sotir Church through a bust and annual memorial services. The original St. Sotir Church was damaged by an earthquake in 1931. Its damaged building was demolished in 1959 by order of a local leader of Korçë during Albania's communist regime.

History

Original church

In 1905, Aromanian priest Haralambie Balamaci [ro] established a chapel in his house in Korçë (Aromanian: Curceauã, Curceao or Curciau), then in the Ottoman Empire and now in Albania. He had been already been collecting funds (more precisely, 1,497 Romanian lei) "to raise cultural national buildings" for the Aromanians from 1886 to 1903 through the society Diștiptarea ("The Awakening"),^[6] which he had founded on 18 December 1886.^[7] Balamaci had the long-term plan of building a church for the Aromanians of the town, and he went to Bucharest in Romania to collect money for his aim. He stayed for around a year, during which he bought a 763 square metres (8,210 square feet) plot of land from a native of Korçë in Bucharest to build a church. Balamaci collected 4,607 lei during his stay from Aromanians as well as Albanians (including future Prime Minister of Albania Pandeli Evangjeli) in Bucharest.^[8] These funds and those obtained through Diștiptarea were either saved for the future church or used for the chapel and a school for the Aromanians of Korçë.^[9] This school also functioned at his house, and Balamaci aimed to erect a building for it as well.^[6]

On 15 November 1909, a seven-member committee, of which Balamaci was the president, was established by the community of pro-Romanian Aromanians of Korçë to open subscription lists to help funding an Aromanian church for the town. The church's construction was budgeted at 60,000 lei, and by early 1912, 22,183 additional lei had been raised from Korçë, Bucharest and various cities in the United States. The Romanian–Aromanian newspaper Peninsula Balcanică ("Balkan Peninsula") helped fund the project through the release of a promotional brochure. Its cover presented a model showing what the church was to look like upon its completion. Sold for one leu, the funds obtained with the brochure were donated for the construction of the church. According to Romanian Aromanian professor Alexandru Gica, Balamaci's brother Epaminonda was probably the brochure's author. He was the attorney-in-fact of Korçë's pro-Romanian Aromanian community for launching subscription lists and collecting money donated for the church's construction.^[10]

In December 1912, during the First Balkan War, Greece occupied Korçë, and the construction of the church was stopped.^[11] Subsequently, on 23 March 1914, Balamaci and his brother Sotir, as well as several other members of the Aromanian community of Korçë, were murdered in the town by Greek antartes fighters and pro-Greek Aromanians. The perpetrators put in the brothers' pockets photos of the Greek bishop Photios of Korytsa,^[12] suggesting that the act was a reprisal for the bishop's murder in 1906.^[c][14] Furthermore, according to a witness, as Balamaci was being taken away to be killed, it was being shouted loudly in the group that Balamaci was a "propagator and apostle of Romanianism".^[15] Balamaci's killers also robbed his house, stealing funds destined for institutions for the Aromanians of Korçë. Some 35,000 lei had been collected by the time of his murder. As a result of the robbery, the completion of the church was delayed.^[11] Balamaci was buried on the vacant site where the Aromanian church of Korçë was to be built.^[16]

The construction of the church was finally completed in 1925.^[11] It was located at the intersection of the current Republika Boulevard with Pandeli Cale Street, near today's Majestik Cinema movie theatre.^[17] The church was consecrated on 25 October 1925, with St. Sotir as its patron saint. On the same day, a bust of Balamaci within the precinct of the church was unveiled. The event was attended by the Romanian minister plenipotentiary to Tirana, Simion Mândrescu [ro]. The church was seriously damaged by an earthquake in 1931. Posteriorly, a small chapel was built next to the damaged church in which priest Cotta Balamace served. It is he who succeeded Haralambie in providing religious service to the Aromanians of Korçë.^[18]

In 1959, a local leader of Korçë of the Albanian communist regime ordered the destruction of the church's damaged building.^[19] A three-story residential block was built in its place.^[17] The leader's father was among those who murdered Balamaci. He exhumed Balamaci's bones and broke them as reported by Gica, quoting the account of a relative of Balamaci. Marioara Balamace, Haralambie's granddaughter, took her grandfather's remains and reburied in 1962. In 1970, the Albanian communist authorities decided to bury Balamaci in the Martyrs' Cemetery in Korçë.^[19]

Reconstructed church

On 5 April 1992, Aromanians of Albania (Arumunët e Shqipërisë), an Aromanian cultural organization in Albania, held its first conference. It had been recently officially registered as an organization on 24 October 1991, as communism was falling in Albania. During the conference, it was decided that a priest had to be trained to hold services in Aromanian for the Albanian Aromanians.^[20] Dhimitraq Veriga, one of the founding members of the association,^[21] was chosen for this purpose. He had been a sculptor up until that point.^[20] Veriga stayed in Romania from 1992 to 1993, where he studied at the Neagoe Vodă Basarab Orthodox Theological Seminary in Curtea de Argeș,^[21] as Balamaci did during his lifetime.^[22] Veriga was ordained priest on 6 December 1992 by Romanian Archbishop of Argeș and Muscel Calinic Argatu [ro],^[21] who had been present at the 1992 conference.^[20] He returned to Albania on April 1993 with the aim of reopening the St. Sotir Church, and on 24 September 1993, he consecrated a chapel with St. Sotir as its patron saint in a room of the former school "Ballamaçi" On 8 October 1995, the construction of the new St. Sotir Church began in its current location.^[21] It was completed in 2005. The church includes the place of the former Aromanian cementery of the city.^[19] Its construction took place with support from the Romanian state.^[23]

The new church is located on the outskirts of the city, within the area of the Rinia Park,^[5] at its entrance.^[24] It is a triconch (with three apses) church with a cross-shaped roof, a dome and an esonarthex (the inner of two narthexes in a church) and a porch on the western side. The church is equipped with an iconostasis carved in wood and wall paintings.^[5] The church has a bust of Haralambie Balamaci. Installed by the Nicolae Iorga Foundation of Sarandë,^[25] it was unveiled on 10 May 2021, on the Balkan Romanianness Day, a public holiday in Romania.^[26] The foundation has also expressed its intention to restore the building of the old chapel, adding a museum of Aromanian culture and a space where children would be able to learn the Aromanian language.^[27]

Dhimitraq (also Dhimitër,^[28] Dumitru,^[17] Dumitrache,^[4] Tache^[19] or Tachi^[2]) Veriga was born on 14 June 1943 in Korçë to Aromanian parents.^[29] Apart from his services at the St. Sotir Church, Veriga participated in numerous religious ceremonies in many other churches in the Korçë area. He performed these services in both Aromanian and Albanian, contributing to the preservation of Aromanian in the country. Veriga went frequently to Romania and maintained good relations with the Department for Romanians Everywhere to deal with any issues related to the church.^[21] On 1 December 2011, he was awarded the Order of Cultural Merit [ro] in the rank of "Commander" by President of Romania Traian Băsescu for being one of the most prominent activists for Aromanian culture in Albania.^[30] Veriga died on 5 September 2016.^[31] For his activities during his lifetime, Albanian Aromanian activist Valentin Mustaka referred to Veriga as "the most worthy image of our martyr Haralambie Balamaci".^[21] As of 2019, Andrea Zhurka had become the priest of the St. Sotir Church.^[17]

The new church has hosted several local activities and events. Bogdan Stanoevici [ro], then Minister Delegate for Relations with Romanians Everywhere, attended religious service at the church on 21 September 2014 during a visit to Korçë in which he also met with several leaders of local Aromanian associations and representatives of the local authorities.^[23] On 7 November 2021, an event was organized at the church for the release of Thoma Binjaku's Aromanian-language manual Abecedar aromân ("Aromanian Alphabet"), published posthumously. It was a project supported by the Department for Romanians Everywhere and the Romanian ambassador to Albania attended the event.^[27] On 8 May 2022, Zhurka and priest Dorel Tomoiagă of Baia Mare in Romania held jointly a religious service in Albanian and Romanian on the occasion of the Eastern Orthodox holiday of the Sunday of the Myrrhbearers and the Europe Day celebrated the next day.^[32] The church, together with other churches in Romania and of the Romanian diaspora, has also held annual memorial services on 23 March to commemorate Balamaci and the other Aromanians murdered the same day in 1914 in Korçë.^[33][34][35]

The church has been subject to numerous robberies and attacks. It was damaged considerably on 17 December 2017, shortly before Christmas, and also suffered an attempted robbery.^[1] On 10 April 2018, the church's exterior was damaged and some 20,000 Albanian lekë were stolen.^[24] On 20 July 2022, the church's safe was blown up by force by people who likely remained inside the church until the priest left following a wedding earlier that day.^[36] Later that same year on 15 November, the donation box of the church was robbed.^[37] The perpetrators of these crimes were not identified despite notifications to the police each time.^{[1][24][36][37]} The Metropolis of Korçë of the Albanian Orthodox Church condemned the incidents,^[24][37] expressing greater concern about the violation of cult objects than about the thefts.^[37]

Notes

References

Citations

Bibliography

• Gica, Alexandru (2009–2011). "The recent history of the Aromanians in Southeast Europe" (PDF). The Newsletter of the Society Farsharotu. 24–25 (1–2): 1–22.
• Gica, Alexandru (2015). O mare "mică istorie" – Haralambie Balamace (PDF) (in Romanian). Editura Cartea Aromână. ISBN 978-973-8299-58-0.
• Mustaka, Valentin (25 December 2011). "Rubrika. Personalitete arëmëne. At Dhimitraq Veriga". Arumunët Albania (in Albanian). No. 10. pp. 3–4.