The questions pertaining to Bishop Noli’s liturgical background are: When did he learn Albanian, English, liturgical Greek and Byzantine Music? Did he study theology? Was Noli trained as a translator? The answer to these questions will give a better understanding of his work as a translator of the Liturgy into both Albanian and English.
As for his early life Bishop Noli establishes a very simple narrative in his autobiography: “Fan Stylian Noli was born in Ibrik Tepe (Kuteza), an Albanian settlement south of Adrianople in Eastern Thrace, European Turkey on January 6, 1882. [...] Theofan, his given name, grew up in a family with strong Albanian traditions and customs as well as with a Christian Orthodox spirituality. Albanian was his only language until he attended school; his primary and high school education was in Greek. The Gymnasium of Adrianople where he studied specialized in training young men to become teachers and cantors. Here Noli became familiar with the liturgical rite of the Greek Orthodox Church. In addition, he studied Byzantine Music, which he had been learning from his early childhood, from his father, using the Greek text both for practice and notation.” [1]
Noli became fully educated in Greek, both modern and classical, and in ecclesiastical studies in general, but not in theology itself.
In 1901, he left for Constantinople[2] and then to Athens, intending to study literature, although in the end, he was not able to study at the University of Athens.[3] He first worked for a Belgian trolley company, then as a copyist for a playwright and a theatrical company, and later on as a prompter and actor traveling with different theatrical companies from 1901 – 1903.
During 1903-1904, he published in Greek his first essays in the newspaper Noumas, using his legal name Theofanis Mavromatis. One of his articles on the Greek language was written from a very Greek prospective… Bishop Noli does not disclose in his autobiography those painful memories of confusion and identity crisis, when Theofanis Mavromatis struggled to become Fan Noli.
Mr. Mavromatis wrote in Demotic and not in Katharevousa, which shows his progressive ideological views about the form of language that he would use for the public for which he made his future translations in Albanian.
From 1903 – 1906 he worked as a teacher and chanter in Greek communities in Egypt. During these years Noli had the opportunity to perfect his skills in Byzantine Music[4] which is an important detail about his musical skills as a translator of the Liturgy.
Furthemore, in Egypt he met Albanian nationalists who encouraged him to move to the United States of America. Only in Egypt did Noli learn about what was going on in the Albanian world, both in politics and letters, because he had the chance to read all the existing publications in the Albanian language for the first time. His interests and passions shifted totally. A stranger without a homeland, a polyglot without a mother tongue had discovered a nation for himself…
In 1906, he arrived in New York by using a fake passport under the name of the Albanian teacher and author Petro Luarasi. The twenty-four year old immigrant who had a strong background in Greek, Albanian, French, Turkish and other languages, and work experience mostly in teaching, Byzantine Music and theater, first worked as a factory worker in Buffalo.
Later, he became deputy editor of the Boston Albanian newspaper Kombi (The Nation). This is an important period of his life because Noli at this time learned how to write Albanian.[5] He had read Albanian literature in Egypt, but now he began to translate and write original works in Albanian, including poetry.
With this stage in his life, we have a complete background to all of Noli’s work as a translator of Liturgy into Albanian: Greek and Albanian languages, Byzantine Music, literary and poetic talent, previous experience in translation and writing. His future studies and activities will have no further effect on our subject, except for his command of English, which Noli did not have that time, but would perfect during his studies at Harvard University.
In 1908, he was ordained a priest by the Russian Archbishop of New York, Platon, as a celibate, although before ordination he was thinking of being ordained as a married priest. He wrote many letters and asked from his friends and Albanian communities in Egypt and Romania to find and send to America a “rich woman” as his future priftëreshë (priest’s wife), until he met Archbishop Platon and made the decision to be a bishop, which in Orthodox Church requires the candidate to be a non married priest.[6]
Noli entered the clergy not as a theologian but as an Orthodox intellectual with interdisciplinary formation, boldness, ambition and vision. Fr Theofan was professionally comfortable with his liturgical duties: Byzantine Music, literature, acting and languages were his strongest attributes. Although he was not a gifted pastor, the young priest was a talented public speaker. Especially in his days being an orator was a condition for being a politician and church leader. He had learned the skills of speaking to an audience from his earlier life and had a popular approach in his preaching, full of literary and cultural references. He contemplated and lived the priesthood as a “transition” period…
His ordination to the priesthood became a starting point, and Noli began his significant work in the history of Albania with his monumental translations of the Liturgy into Albanian.
He began to organize an Albanian Orthodox Church in America under the jurisdiction and the protection of Russian Church. That same year he enrolled at Harvard University to study literature. It was during his studies at Harvard, while he was serving as a priest for Albanian immigrants, that he translated and published his first set of liturgical translations into Albanian and edited the newspaper Dielli (The Sun).
Furthermore, in 1912, together with Faik Bey Konitza,[7] he founded the pan-Albanian Federation Vatra (The Hearth), which was destined to become the most significant Albanian organization in America, with strong influence on the political landscape for the new Albanian state back in the homeland.
During 1908-1912, Fan Noli became famous among Albanians as a gifted intellectual, a talented writer and translator, and a Community leader. Very quickly he became indispensable part of an emerging Albanian national literature.
His multidimensional personality and genuine national contribution were stronger than all those patriotic voices questioning his Albanianness by referring to his enigmatic cultural background. With hard work, discipline and dedication Fan Noli imposed himself in the Albanian world. This was the most productive period of his life.
In 1915, after graduating from Harvard and visiting Albania and Albanian communities in Romania, Bulgaria and Russia for the first time, Noli founded the periodical Adriatic Review. In 1919, Archimandrite Theofan was elected bishop by the Russian Synod but was not ordained, because of the strong reaction against this decision from the Greek Church.
In 1920, Noli, who called himself “Bishop Fan Noli,”[8] even though he was not ordained into episcopacy, headed the Albanian delegation to Geneva and was successful in having Albania admitted to the League of Nations. From Geneva he returned in Albania to represent Vatra to the parliament in Tirana.
The scandal of self-ordination to episcopacy, especially by mobilising his Albanian flock in America to “consecrate” him, demonstrates Noli’s lack of both theological studies and ecclesiastical phronema. He was not interested in theology and this is the biggest problem in his liturgical translations. However, Archimandrite Theofan enjoyed church independence and was not defrocked by the Russian Church.
In 1922, Noli became Minister of Foreign Affairs on the same year the first Albanian Orthodox Congress was held in Berat of central Albania. The Congress proclaimed the independence of the local Church and established the “National Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania.” Noli was absent but the shadow of his self-ordination was there…
An administrative council was elected, preparing the way for a local synod of bishops, and the first Constitution of the Church was approved. The Albanian Orthodox representatives, clergy and laity, discussed the needs for a better and complete canon of Liturgy in Albanian. Noli’s liturgical translations on Article 13 of the Constitution were received as “temporary.” It was another word for condemnation.
The course of history changed, when in 1923, Noli was ordained canonically into episcopacy and was named Metropolitan of Durrës and Tirana. Thus, His Eminence Theofan became the first de facto Primate of the national Orthodox Church in Albania, but without the blessing of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Nevertheless, the patriarchal hierarchs who ordained him, were not disciplined by Constantinople, and the new Bishop together with the first local synod in Albania did not face canonical charges.
In 1924, Noli became Prime Minister of Albania, leading a “democratic” government that had taken power by force, compelling the feudal Prime Minister Ahmet Bey Zogu to flee to Serbia. After six months, with the overthrow of his government by Zogu’s forces, Noli left Albania forever, having lived there for about four years only. Zogu, who became King Zog I of Albania in 1928, passed a death sentence in absentia on the “rebel Bishop.”
During his short presence in Albania, Noli’s life and activity was mostly political and cultural. He invested further into becoming a national figure in a predominately Muslim country. The Harvard graduate viewed himself as an outsider and enlightener of a backward Albanian nation, and this was his strongest “missionary” passion. He experienced the church activity as part of this universal role among Albanians.
The providence would consume his life and many talents for a nation in darkness… The best evidence is his fine translations of world literature into Albanian: Shakespeare, Cervantes, Edgar Allan Poe, Omar Khayyam and others. There is also politics and public discourse in a popular language. For a genius like Noli, the Church was so small…
While in Albania, Noli found time to translate Persian poetry but he did not work on improving or completing his liturgical translations. Yet he tried to reform the Byzantine Church music by bringing to Albania a Russian choir, for which he expresses sentiment and pride in his autobiography.
Reading his life and work in impartiality, it can be said that Noli’s canonical ordination was his only ecclesiastical achievement during his four years in Albania. Contrary to the truth, the Albanian nationalist propaganda anointed him as the founder of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania, when in fact he was not even present in the Congress of Berat. He was born for greater things…
In 1932, the former Metropolitan of Dyrrachium returned to the United States after spending eight years in Europe, mostly in Germany, waiting for an American visa and translating and publishing world literature in Albanian. Neither Noli nor his biographers give us any information about his life during these years of political exile. From the views of the bibliographical references, this is the gloomiest period of his life. Yet one thing was proved sufficiently true: A great man had no homeland.
As Primate of the Albanian Orthodox Church in America — a title which Noli himself invented — but considered an “uncanonical Bishop” by the Greek Church and by many Albanians,[9] he experienced isolation and persecution by Zog’s regime and his spies among the Albanians in America.
Bishop Noli became very ill and was abandoned by his parishes, by many of his friends and by the Orthodox Church of Albania. In this extreme loneliness, from his hospital bed, Fan Noli sought help from many directions. The only one to hear his voice was Ahmet Zogu; the “compassionate” Muslim King paid all his enemy’s medical bills and saved him from death.
In 1935, at the age of fifty-three, Noli went to study music at the New England Conservatory in Boston and the following year he published Hymnore, a musical book with settings of the Liturgy in Albanian. Although he was a musician, Noli wanted to perfect his skills in composition. This is the only effort that Bishop Noli made to be trained as a professional translator of Liturgy, because he had difficulty setting to music his future translations into English. If Bishop Noli had made the same effort to be trained in theology or philology, as well as in music, his liturgical translations would have been much different in both languages.
When Italy occupied Albania in 1939, King Zog abandoned the country to save his life and asked Noli to become Prime Minister of his government in exile. But the antiroyalist politician rejected the offer. At this moment of history the two most famous Albanians had more than one thing in common: A self-bestowed King and a self-bestowed Primate were both in exile…
After the graduation from the Conservatory (1938), Noli started his second period of Albanian liturgical translations (1941-1952). This happened while he was pursuing graduate studies for a PhD dissertation at Boston University in history, writing a thesis on the national hero of Albania, Skanderbeg.
Taking advantage of Noli’s political weakness as not being universally accepted by all Albanians in America, the Ecumenical Patriarchate undertook a campaign against “so-called Bishop Noli” by ordaining a young Albanian as the “canonical Bishop of the Albanians in America.” This was a real threat, but Noli managed to keep control of most of his parishes.
This political division among Albanians after the Second World War provided an opening for the Ecumenical Patriarch to establish the Albanian Diocese in America under Bishop Mark Lipe, as a rival to the Albanian Orthodox Church in America under Bishop Fan Noli. Another negative affecting Noli’s power was the fact that the Greek Archbishop Athenagoras, later to become the Ecumenical Patriarch, was himself of Albanian background, and thus was able to celebrate and preach among the Albanian parishes in America in their own language.
Bishop Noli supported the recognition of the communist government in Albania, but he did not agree to return to Albania at Enver Hoxha’s invitation before the first communist elections in 1945. In 1963, however, when Noli wanted to visit Albania, he was not accepted by the communist regime.[10]
Nevertheless, the Socialist Realism doctrine included him into the canon of national literature and established a mythical profile of Fan S. Noli. The “Democratic” Revolution of 1924, his popular History of Skanderbeg, the anti-feudal and anti-royal rhyming poems, the brilliant translations of classic world literature, the plethoric writings on literary criticism and political analysis were exceedingly sufficient to undo his religious profile and impose oblivion on his most voluminous works: The Orthodox liturgical publications.
Contemplating his rising cult in the history of Albania, Bishop Noli was well pleased to dedicate the last period of his life to translating the Liturgy, the New Testament and the Psalms into English. (1949-1964)
He died peacefully in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on March 13, 1965 at the age of eighty-three, a few days after his successor, Fr. Stefan Lasko, was sent by him to Albania to be ordained into the episcopacy.
© Foti Cici
[1] Fan Noli, Biographical Sketch, p. 49. Noli does not say anything in his autobiography about his initial official name Theofanis Mavromatis. Noli was his actual family name, according to his memoirs. Later, Noli will drop Mavromatis after he left Greece. Theofan would remain for the Church. However in his late years he will sign letters to his siblings as Theofanis...
[2] This period is contradictory because in his autobiography Noli describes his adventures in Constantinople, where he hardly ever found room and board and the ticket to travel to Athens, but in his Harvard application Noli adds that he studied at the “Royal Italian School, Constantinople 1900 – 1901.” See Efthim Dodona, Noli i Panjohur, p. 20.
[3] Most of Noli’s biographers mention that he was enrolled at the School of Philology at the University of Athens but neither Noli himself nor any other documentation shows this. I personally did research at the archives of the University of Athens, researching the period of Noli’s stay in Greece, but I did not find any relevant reference.
[4] “He had obtained a thorough training in Byzantine chanting, which was to be most helpful to him later on,” Fan Noli, Biographical Sketch, p 96.
[5] Fan Noli, “Këshilla për shkrimtarët e rinj” (Suggestions to young authors), Vepra 5, p.284.
[6] “Are you married? – He [Archbishop Platon] asked me. No, – I told him. That’s better, – he said, – because in this way you will be able to be Bishop one day in Albania,” “Letter to Thanas Tashko,” Boston, Mass, July 16, 1906, cited from Fan S. Noli, Vepra 6, 1996, p. 341 (translated from the original in Albanian).
[7] Faik Konitza (Konica) (1875-1942). Political figure, publicist and publisher. He was born in Konitsa of Greece and was educated in Dijon, France, and Harvard. Konica had a tremendous impact on Albanian culture at that time. His periodical Albania, written in Albanian and French, helped create the Albanian cause in Europe and fortified the Albanian movement. See: Robert Elsie, Dictionary of Albanian Literature, 1986, p.79.
[8] In 1921 Noli published his most popular book in Albanian, a panegyric history of national hero of Albania, Skanderbeg (Skënderbeu in Albanian) signed as “Peshkop (Bishop) Fan Noli,” although he had only been elected as bishop, but not ordained, and was only a priest Archimandrite or self-ordained Bishop, after his ‘romance’ with the Russian Church ended without ordaining him. Using an episcopal title in his correspondence, articles and in Church was one of Noli’s great mistakes, which the Patriarchate took advantage of to stigmatize him as a “self-ordained” bishop, even after he was canonically ordained bishop in 1923.
[9] It is surprising how Albanian politicians were using the terminology of Greek propaganda to express their loyalty to the King Zog and his benefits. See, “Djalli me maskë peshkopi” (The Bishop with Devil’s mask) Dielli, November 11, 1932, cited from Mimoza Nano, Fan Noli – Bibliografi (Me anotacion), Universiteti i Tiranës, Fakulteti Histori-Filologji, Tiranë 1980, p.102.
[10] This information was unknown until 1997, when Behar Shtylla, the former Foreign Minister of Enver Hoxha’s government in 1963, published his book (Fan Noli, siç e kam njohur, p.157, Tiranë, Dituria 1997) with his memories from the contacts he had with Bishop Noli, when he was representative of Albania at the United Nations and as a Foreign Minister.
