TIRANA, April 5/ATA/ Archbishop of Tirana, Durrës and all Albania, His Beatitude, Bishop Joani was the guest of Prime Minister Edi Rama in the podcast “Flasim” (Let’s Talk).
The podcast was entitled “The Long-awaited Albanian”. Archbishop Joani told how he decided to embrace the Orthodox faith when he read the Bible for the first time at the age of high school.
PM Rama revealed his early acquaintance with Archbishop Joan.
“We have talked about these topics while taking evening walks on ‘Myslym Shyri’ street until after midnight in the 80ies, when Albania was under communism. We did not even think that we would go out into the free world and be free to practice religion. Then, Joan said, “I will become a priest””, he said.
Archbishop spoke about his life in communism when he had the painful experience of working at the Psychiatric Hospital number 5 in Tirana, where before becoming a priest he served as a nurse.
“The mind is the most important thing in a person. These people must be helped”, he said.
Rama remembered him saying that “Psychiatry was the gym in the absence of the church, where he trained the soul”.
Archbishop Joani said that, “The Church has never been against technology, but technology in itself cannot solve the existential crisis”.
Asked about the relationship with Fan Noli, Bishop Joani said that his work is incredible and his translation is unrepeatable. According to him, “Fan Noli remains one of the central figures of the Orthodox Church”.
“The church always remained my first love for me,” Bishop Joani quoted Fan Noli’s manuscripts. /a.f/p.s./
