Fan S. Noli - Origin

Origin

Noli was born in the Albanian community of Ibrik Tepe, Eastern Thrace, as Theofanus Stylianos Mavromatis. As a young man Noli wandered throughout the Mediterranean Basin, living in Athens, Greece, Alexandria, Egypt, and Odessa, Russia, and supporting himself as an actor and translator. He knew 13 foreign languages. Through his contacts with the Albanian expatriate movement, he became an ardent supporter of his country's nationalist movement, and moved to Boston in 1906 in order to mobilize the Albanian emigrant community. At that time, in Boston some Albanian Christians were part of the Greek Orthodox Church, which was vehemently opposed to the Albanian nationalist cause. When a Greek Orthodox priest refused to perform the burial rites for Kristaq Dishnica, a member of the Albanian community from Hudson, Massachusetts because of his nationalist activity, Noli and a group of Albanian nationalists in New England created the independent Albanian Orthodox Church. Noli, the new church's first clergyman, was ordained as a priest in 1908 by a Russian Orthodox bishop in the United States. In 1923, Noli was consecrated as a bishop for the Church of Albania.