Rrok Mirdita
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Rrok Kola Mirdita (born September 28, 1939, Klezna, Montenegro) is the Catholic Archbishop of Durrės-Tirana, the Primate of Albania.
He was ordained a priest on July 2, 1965, and he was the priest of an Albanian parish in Bronx, New York, USA.
On December 25, 1992, he was appointed the archbishop of the Durrės-Tirana Archdiocese and he was ordained on April 25, 1993, by Pope John Paul II and Camillo Cardinal Ruini and Jozef Cardinal Tomko along with three more bishops (Zef Simoni, Frano Illia and Robert Ashta) during the Pope's pastoral visit to Albania. So the Catholic hierarchy was restored in Albania after persecutions by Communists. He says that he has nothing from his predecessor save his breast cross.
He is the President of Albanian Bishops Conference and the Chairman of Caritas Albania.
On his initiative St. Paul's Cathedral was built in Tirana. Its triangular architecture, according to the Archbishop's idea, symbolizes the cohabitation of Islam, Orthodox Christianity and Catholicism in Albania. The first Holy Mass in the new cathedral was served by Angelo Cardinal Sodano, Vatican's Secretary of State, and Archbishop Rrok Mirdita on January 27, 2002. The Archbishop's house was built next to the cathedral.
At Christmas 1999 the Catholic archbishop Rrok Mirdita and the Orthodox Archbishop Anastasios (Anastas) together greeted the believers.
Archbishop Rrok Mirdita thinks that the deep cause of the riots of 1997 in Albania is a crisis of values. The only counterweight to the temptations of the West is Christ.
External links
- Photos: [1] (http://www.kirche-in-not.de/01_aktuelles/projekte_mai.php) [2] (http://www.acismom.com/Smom/ACTIVITIES/rivista/2000p/42eng.htm) [3] (http://www.byzantines.net/OurLadyofGrace/photo3.htm)et:Rrok Mirdita