On April 6, 1897 , Florian Berisha, a catholic clergyman, was born in Janjevë, Kosova, one of the signatories of the Statute of the Catholic Church of Albania (1951). He completed his secondary studies in Shkodër. In 1919, he continued his studies at the Philosophical Faculty of Padua. After a year, due to health reasons, he returned to Shkodër, where he was entrusted with minor responsibilities in teaching and assistance. In 1923 he studied philosophy in Rome. A year later, he completed the fourth year of his master’s degree in Shkodër and resumed theology studies in Chieri, Turin. He returned to Albania and was ordained a priest in 1929 by the Apostolic Delegate, Monsignor Giovanbattista della Pietra. He was arrested in 1947. He was held for 13 months in the cells of the Security, experiencing the most inhuman torture of himself until he he was nearly driven to madness. He was arrested again in 1958, but was not kept long. In recent years, together with Dom Ernest Çoba, he served as an assistant parish priest in the Cathedral of Shkodra. (In the photo: Florian Berisha)
Text: Encyclopedic dictionary of victims of communist terror – Vol. I , “West Print”, Institute for the Study of Crimes and Consequences of Communism, Tirana, 2012, page 175-176.
Photo : © Institute for the Study of Crimes and Consequences of Communism
Graphic processing: AHCF
