{"id":7921,"date":"1970-01-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1970-01-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/albheritage.wpadmin.ch\/1970\/01\/01\/the-founding-congress-of-the-autocephalous-orthodox-church\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T18:52:56","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T18:52:56","slug":"the-founding-congress-of-the-autocephalous-orthodox-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/albheritage.wpadmin.ch\/en\/1970\/01\/01\/the-founding-congress-of-the-autocephalous-orthodox-church\/","title":{"rendered":"The Founding Congress of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The “Foundational Congress of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church” was <\/span>founded<\/span> in the school hall of <\/span>Mangalem<\/span> in Berat. The Congress <\/span>itself <\/span>founded the Albanian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (KOASH). The Congress was the consequence and <\/span>product<\/span> of a broad national and religious movement, which had its roots in the period of the National Renaissance. The initiative to <\/span>convene<\/span> a national orthodox congress was taken by the mayor of Durrës, <\/span>Kostë<\/span> Paftali<\/span>, who also made the relevant announcements. A commission was created for the organization of the congress, which chose the city of Berat as the place where the congress proceedings would take place. The entire Orthodox community of Albania was represented at the congress with clerical and delegates legally elected by the Orthodox of the prefectures and sub-prefectures of the Albanian state. The Congress elected <\/span>Ikonom<\/span> Papi Josif, a delegate from <\/span>Korça<\/span>, as <\/span>chairman<\/span>. His proposal for the creation of the Albanian Autocephalous Orthodox Church was unanimously approved by all delegates. The Congress approved the Congress Call (Proclamation), Provisional Statutes and Church Regulations. In the call, it was emphasized that the autocephaly of the Albanian church was based on the principle of a free church in a free state and had as an example the autocephalous churches <\/span>established<\/span> before. The church would <\/span>maintain<\/span> spiritual, <\/span>dogmatic,<\/span> and apostolic ties with the Ecumenical (general) Patriarchate in Istanbul and with other autocephalous Orthodox churches. <\/span>Korça<\/span> was chosen as the center of the Church. The Albanian language was <\/span>designated<\/span> as the official language for correspondence and religious services. <\/span><\/span>(In 3 photographs: Statute of the National Orthodox Church, 1922.)<\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Text<\/strong>:<\/span><\/span> Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. <\/span>2,<\/span><\/span> Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2008, page 1262.<\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Photo<\/strong>: <\/span><\/span>© Central State Archives<\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Graphic processing<\/strong>: <\/span><\/span>AHCF<\/span><\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From September 10 to 19, 1922, the “Founding Congress of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church” convened in the hall of the Mangalem school in Berat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ngjarje"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/albheritage.wpadmin.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/albheritage.wpadmin.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/albheritage.wpadmin.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albheritage.wpadmin.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albheritage.wpadmin.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7921"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/albheritage.wpadmin.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11584,"href":"https:\/\/albheritage.wpadmin.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7921\/revisions\/11584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albheritage.wpadmin.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/albheritage.wpadmin.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albheritage.wpadmin.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/albheritage.wpadmin.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}