Rrok Mirdita
Rrok Kola Mirdita (born
September 28,
1939,
Klezna,
Montenegro) is the
Catholic Archbishop of
Durrës-
Tirana, the Primate of
Albania.
He was
ordained a
priest on
July 2,
1965, and he was the priest of an
Albanian parish in
Bronx,
New York,
USA.
On
December 25,
1992, he was appointed the archbishop of the
Durrës-Tirana Archdiocese and he was ordained on
April 25,
1993, by
Pope John Paul II and
Camillo Cardinal Ruini and
Jozef Cardinal Tomko along with three more bishops (
Zef Simoni,
Frano Illia and
Robert Ashta) during the Pope's pastoral visit to Albania. So the Catholic hierarchy was restored in Albania after persecutions by Communists. He says that he has nothing from his predecessor save his breast cross.
He is the President of Albanian Bishops Conference and the Chairman of Caritas Albania.
On his initiative St. Paul's Cathedral was built in Tirana. Its triangular architecture, according to the Archbishop's idea, symbolizes the cohabitation of
Islam,
Orthodox Christianity and Catholicism in Albania. The first
Holy Mass in the new cathedral was served by
Angelo Cardinal Sodano,
Vatican's Secretary of State, and Archbishop Rrok Mirdita on
January 27,
2002. The Archbishop's house was built next to the cathedral.
At
Christmas 1999 the Catholic archbishop Rrok Mirdita and the Orthodox Archbishop
Anastasios (Anastas) together greeted the believers.
Archbishop Rrok Mirdita thinks that the deep cause of the riots of
1997 in Albania is a crisis of values. The only counterweight to the temptations of the West is Christ.
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