By Tome Mrijaj
Memorie.al / The story of the outstanding cleric Mons. Dr. Zef Oroshi, is connected to his birthplace in Kaftall i Oroshi, where the great events of the Door of the Captains of Mirdita began, that for five centuries in a row, fought relentlessly against the atrocities of the Ottoman Empire, always preserving the national identity, language, religion, traditions and typical Illyrian-Arberian-Albanian culture. On November 23, 1912, exactly five days before the Declaration of Independence of Albania in historic Vlora, in those days, when the country smelled of hot gunpowder smoke, the child was born, who was baptized with the name Zef Çoku, in Kaftall of Brightening.
Zef Oroshi finished his primary studies in his hometown, while he started his secondary studies in 1927, at the Saverian Seminary (1859) of the Jesuit Order in Shkodër. He stood out as a smart and diligent child, among many other students of the school. Father Ejëll Serreqi S.J. highlights the intelligence and possible vocation for the clergy in the student of Mirdira, directing Zefi to the Pontifical Seminary in Shkodër, a city known for its culture, religion and tradition.
The former student of Mjeda and Fishta, student Oroshi, in 1936-1940, leaves for Rome, to continue his higher philosophical and theological studies, near the University of Urbino, in “Propaganda Fide”, where, later, he is ordained a priest in Italy. He was very happy, that he was saying the first mass, but also touched, because that year in 1940, the “National Poet” Father Gjergj Fishta O.F.M. (1871-1940), whom he had met several times when he was a student in Shkodër and a student in Italy.
The energetic young man welcomed the invasion of Albania by fascist Italy (7 April 1939) with great concern, keeping the flag of Skenderbeu in his bedroom. The high sense of freedom was highly developed in his soul. This apparently came from the sound patriotic upbringing, which he had received in the family and later in the Catholic assemblies in Shkodër, which were and remained the hearth, from where warm rays of boundless patriotism for the lands, history, culture and autochthonous Albanian civilization were distributed. .
After his studies, he returns to his hometown. The bishop, Monsignor Frano Gjini, appoints him parish priest in the Church of St. Mary Magdalene, in Ungrej of Mirdita, and again later appoints Dom Zef Oroshi, as his assistant, in the diocese of Mirdita. It was a terrible time, when communism had taken out its cancerous tentacles and was destroying every hearth of Western European and Albanian culture and civilization.
The contemporary German researcher and albanologist, Dom Dr. Markus E. E. Peters, in his book: “Confrontations in the history of the Catholic Church in Albania 1919-1996” (Tirana, 2010), among other things, writes: “… it was known that Dom Zef Oroshi, in March 1951, wanted to organize an uprising in the Catholic Mirdita. In that period, there were sporadic attempts by Italy to infiltrate agents with the aim of subverting the system in Albania.
Dom Zef Oroshi with Jak Përjak, tried to organize these units together with the Mirdita families. As a result, the Catholic area of Mirdita was attacked more than all other areas of Albania. The balance was: over 200 killed or sentenced to death, over 270 prisoners and over 500 exiles…! As can be seen, Dom Zef Oroshi was one of the most wanted persons in Albania at that time”! (p. 197).
While the other researcher Dr. Pjetër Pepa, in his book: “The Tragedy and Glory of the Catholic Clergy in Albania” (Tirana, 2007, Volume II), highlighting the manly anti-communist attitude of the Mirditor priest, assesses: “Mons. Dr. Zef Oroshi, for the connections he made with the Vatican, through ‘saboteurs’, regarding the way the events unfolded in Albania, for the approval of the Statute, his arrest by the communists is demanded at all costs, so he ran away and joined the anti-communist fighters, the mountains of Albania.
Based on the archival documents of the Ministry of the Interior, it turns out that his escape, at the Albanian border of that period, was of special importance. Mehmet Shehu himself showed a special interest in him and, in order to avoid his escape across the borders and to capture him at all costs, in addition to the Pursuit Forces, he also activated some clerics, who he sent to Mirdita in those days, to search for him and found by any means, if it was still within the borders of Albania, beyond the mountains of Mirdita”. (p. 260)
The prominent Mirditori, became the most important cleric in the Albanian world of America. The erudite intellectual Mons. Dr. Zef Oroshi, as early as the first year, when he was ordained a priest, turned the celebration of November 28, 1912, the greatest event in the glorious history of the Albanian lands, into a tradition, as it was the Declaration of Independence of Albania, commemorating it with a special mass of annual, with which he prayed with all his soul together with the believers, for all the martyrs of the Albanian nation, fallen over the centuries, for the high interests of the Motherland.
The deceased priest, Dom Rrok Mirdita (His Excellency, former Archbishop of the Metropolitan Archbishop of Tirana-Durrës), who replaced Mons. Zef Oroshi, after his passing to eternity, continued the tradition of commemoration, by means of a special mass, for the souls of all the fallen martyrs at different times, for the sacred national ideal.
The dedicated cleric, the tireless patriot Reverend Dom Pjeter Popaj, as a follower of the binomial Faith and Homeland, in addition to the soulful memorial mass, for all the martyrs of the ethnic lands, now returned to tradition, he proudly under the sounds of the National Anthem raises The Albanian flag, on the marked date of November 28, on the altar of the “Our Lady of Shkodra” Catholic Church, in Hartsdale New York.
When we listened in silence, the sound of the melodious voice of the fiery words, full of patriotic inspiration, of the exemplary preacher Mons. Dr. Zef Oroshi (Founders of the First Albanian Catholic Church in the USA), among the hundreds of Albanians present from every province, regardless of religion and ideas, we immigrants of America grew even more patriotism for our native lands.
He stayed in his cell until the late hours of the night, working with great dedication and care on drafting the message or spiritual prayers for the Albanian people, and in particular the unfortunate ones, who lived under the iron hoof, inside the great prison of communist regime in Albania.
Mons Oroshi, often in free conversations, among his compatriots in Kosovo, Italy and finally in the USA, expressed himself with great anger, for the unparalleled atheistic persecution that the communist regime did to the Albanian people and the Catholic clergy in particular. With great concern, he told about the desecration of the national symbol of Gjergj Gjon Kastrioti, the flag washed over the centuries with the blood of the brave. I recall, with great respect, some impressive instances of our priest with high and deep patriotic feelings.
Thus, I still keep fresh in my memory a very significant detail, when Mons. Zef Oroshi, I do not allow the crowd of wedding guests to enter the Church “Our Lady of Kshilli t’Mir” (today “Our Lady of Shkodra” in Hartsdale, New York) with a flag with the yellow Russian Bolshevik star, above the two-proud vulture, which called it a great violence and crime, that the communists always in the country-of-origin and diaspora, did to the national symbol of our hero Gjergj Gjon Kastriot.
The flag which was raised after many years of captivity by the fate of freedom, Dede Gjon Luli with his mountaineers (on April 6, 1911 on the top of Decic) and finally the long-awaited Independence was proclaimed, a year later by the wise old man with white beard Ismail Bey Qemali together with many other patriots, on November 28, 1912.
During my research and daily contacts, which I had with the friends of Mons. Oroshit, I was able to secure a document entitled: “Prayer of Dom Zef Oroshit”. What stands out is the deep patriotic spirit that pervades this message-prayer, which is the same as many other prayers that he has preached every year on the anniversary of Albania’s Independence.
For the first time after 51 years, to the Albanian readers, I am bringing this document (On the celebration of the Independence of Albania on November 28, New York, 1961), which is entitled; PRAYER for all Albanians around the world and especially for the small community in the USA.
“O almighty and eternal God, creator of heaven and earth, lord of peoples, nations and their governors, you have me first, we are raising our minds and raising our hearts, on this commemorative day of the 49th anniversary of the Independence of our nation, together with kind friends of our Nation, who try and fight on the same front with us for the same holy cause: Peace in the world and freedom for the captive peoples.
Your name was honored and praised by the Albanian people of three faiths, when they enjoyed that freedom, which You yourself, in Your immeasurable squares, influenced the conscience of each person and, consequently, of which nation and the entire human race. But today, in that place we left with the blood of our ancestors to regain and protect that freedom, Your name is insulted and despised, the shrines built in honor of You have been deserted, demolished or put to other uses. already, from a land of blind sons of that people.
But we are begging you, the representatives of the three faiths, here as if we are connected and brothers by blood, ideal and steadfast faith in you, not for our merits, but for the sake of those of our brothers who have supported the hope in You, through suffering and salvation, for the sufferings of the innocents who were strictly confined in prisons or among the death camps of compulsory labor, in the blood of our better brothers, to persevere in their faith in You, O God, in the morality and tradition of their Nation, bring Your merciful eyes upon our Nation, Albania. Look with sorrow at the suffering of that people.
Enlighten today the erring and the blind; divide and disperse, destroy and exterminate the evil powers that act with satanic subtlety for the disappearance and uprooting of the Andean Nation, from the hearts of the babies and the Albanian Andean people. Bless, O God, our emigration! Give strength and organization to honor the Name of the Andes and the Motherland, among the host nations where it is found. I added and perfected the sacred ideal, which the historical moment of the Nation requires, union and brotherhood.
And just as through the powerless hands of Judith, you annihilated the greatness of Holofernes and through the still tender hands of the shepherd David, you planted for the blasphemer of Emni t’And, the giant Goliath, so you strengthened our Emigration, to face them with honor, jointly and fraternally with all the nations of the free world, to the all-out war of atheistic and aggressive communism, denying and fighting every freedom and belief.
Give, oh God, light, peace and eternal happiness to all fellow patriots who, among the steep mountains or among the prisons and death camps, sacrificed their lives on the altar of the Fatherland to feel loyal to the Law of the Fatherland and freedom of the Albanian Nation and for life, may their memory and example be indelible in our hearts and minds and those of future generations in our Albanian land.
Bless, O God, give welcome to this Nation where we are and to all its freedom-loving people, who with an exemplary generosity, selflessness and humanitarianism, helped and helps our Emigration and our sacred cause for freedom”. Memorie.al
