Metropolitan Joan of Korca elected as Primate of the Albanian Orthodox Church

UOJ-Albania reported earlier today that Metropolitan Joan (Pelushi) of Korça was elected as the new Archbishop of the Orthodox Church of Albania. The election took place during a Holy Synod meeting, where Metropolitan Joan was confirmed by majority vote as the successor to the late Archbishop Anastasi.

The announcement of the Holy Synod's vote was followed by cheers and the chanting of Axios! Axios! Axios! by the assembled clergy and faithful.

The enthronement of the new Archbishop will occur on March 29, 2025 at the Resurrection Cathedral in Tirana.

Biography of Archbishop Joan Pulushi

Metropolitan Joan was born on January 1, 1956, in Albania to a Bektashi family. His family suffered persecution at the hands of the communist regime, with his father was imprisoned in 1944 as an "enemy of the state."

Despite Albania's state-enforced atheism, Joan developed a deep interest in religious matters. In 1975, during his final year of high school, he was introduced to the secret Orthodox Christian group New Besa through a friend. This encounter profoundly influenced his conversion to Christianity. Despite the risks, he continued to study religious literature in secret.

On June 24, 1979, Joan was secretly baptized by then Fr. Kosma Kirjo, taking the name of St. John the Baptist. At that time, the small Orthodox community he was part of held clandestine gatherings, facing great risk of persecution by the regime.

After the fall of communism, he was admitted to the Holy Cross Orthodox School of Theology in Brookline, Massachusetts, with a scholarship from the Albanian Orthodox community in America. During his studies, he learned of Metropolitan Anastasi's arrival in Albania and decided to return to help rebuild the Orthodox Church.

After graduating in 1993, he declined offers to serve as a priest in the U.S. and returned to Albania, teaching at the newly reopened Orthodox seminary and took on various responsibilities within the Church.

On February 27, 1994, he was ordained a deacon, and on December 4, 1994, a priest, by Archbishop Anastasi. After several years of further study in the United States, he returned to Albania and was appointed assistant rector of the Albanian Academy in Durrës, where he was elevated to the rank of Archimandrite on November 19, 1996.

On July 18, 1998, the Holy Synod of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania elected him Metropolitan of Korça. He was ordained bishop on July 20, 1998, at the Cathedral of the Annunciation in Tirana. Archbishop Anastasi and other hierarchs from sister Orthodox Churches presided over the ceremony.

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