By Dashnor Kaloçi
Memorie.al / Christmas, the greatest feast for Christian believers worldwide, only began to be celebrated again in Albania (after a long hiatus) following the 1990s. This change occurred as the communist regime was forced to make concessions due to international pressure and the significant push from thousands of Albanian Catholic and Orthodox believers. They had been deprived of this right since 1967, when Enver Hoxha’s dictatorial regime outlawed the practice of religion, declaring Albania the world’s only atheist state – a status later sanctioned in the 1976 Constitution.
In 1967, the communist regime banned the practice of faith de jure, although it had de facto launched a fierce war against religious institutions as early as 1945. This period was marked by the arrest, imprisonment, internment, and execution of dozens of Catholic priests, as well as Orthodox and Muslim clergy – a systematic persecution that continued until the late 1980s.
Despite this unprecedented persecution – noting that the crackdown on the Catholic clergy was significantly more severe than on other faiths – from 1945 to 1967, numerous believers continued to fill places of worship, where Christmas remained the most important celebration. One of the Catholic clerics who served during this period was Dom Ernest Simoni (Troshani). On October 9, 2016, he was elevated to Cardinal by Pope Francis, becoming the second Albanian Cardinal after Dom Mikel Koliqi.
Memorie.al is publishing several rare photographs of Dom Ernest, starting from the period of the Zog Monarchy, continuing through the occupation of the country, and into the era of the communist regime when he served as a priest in various religious ceremonies. Also included are photos from his meetings with Pope Francis at the Vatican and during the Holy See’s visit to Albania.
