The new book by Ines Angeli Murzaku, an associate professor of church history at Seton Hall University, has added a new chapter to the understanding of the land on the other side of the Adriatic Sea, so close to the important cultural centers of Greece and Italy and yet so different from them. It presents the contribution of the community of the Basilians in Albania in a broad context, ending with the year 1946, when the Communist Party seized power in Albania, expelled foreigners, and began the process of annihilation of the religious element in the daily pulse of the nation.

Murzaku may humbly describe the survey as an "interesting case study" (p. 9), but there is much more to it than that. Based on the rich archival material from the Albanian and Italian archives and the extensive literature, she gives an in-depth overview of the history of Christianity on the ground of the present-day Albania—especially its southern part, in the slow death of Christian communities after the occupation of the land by the Ottoman Empire, and in the formation of the Albanian refugee communities in Italy. In addition, she outlines the relationships between Eastern and Western Christian churches that met in the area settled by the Albanian tribes and in southern Italy. This is the setting of the Basilian monastic community and its unique historical role. Monasticism brought from the East to southern Italy all the wealth of the East, becoming a bridge between East and West and thus enriching the communities in the Western Church. With the settlement near Rome in Grottaferrata shortly after the end of the first millennium of Christian history, the Basilian monks became "'as a bridge between East and West, as a living memory of the undivided Christendom'" (p. 31).

The Eastern origin, organization, and discipline of the Basilian monks made them, in the opinion of the church leadership, the most appropriate individuals to strengthen the Christian communities on the border between the Greek and Latin worlds settled by the Albanian tribes and to establish links between the two Christian traditions. They took over this task twice in history. Their role was to maintain the image of the Church as it had been before the Great Schism, to sustain the wealth of both communities, and to point to the goal ahead of them. Since they were the only living institution that had existed before the division, their testimony and standing were significant. When the Albanian population in the south started to show interest in greater integration with the Latin Church, the authorities felt that the Basilian monks were best equipped to perform the task of integrating and restructuring. The author clearly states that the Roman institutions and their leaders had poor knowledge of the traditions and spiritual wealth of the East, perhaps versed more in principles rather than practice, and their requirements and expectations were unrealistic. When the initiatives came from the Albanians, it often happened that they adopted the wait-and-see policy, which failed to reflect the interest shown by the people in the pope and in better integration with the West. Before World War II, the Basilian monks were again sent to the Albanians, but the opportunity had been lost. It appeared that, during the Italian occupation of Albania, which should have stimulated greater interest on the part of the Albanians for linking with the Roman Church, the expectations of the Holy See were too high. With Muslims assuming the dominant role in Albanian society, it was now the Albanians who adopted the wait-and-see strategy. Together with the Sisters of Saint Macrina, who focused mainly on education and social work, the Basilians did not have many opportunities to forge deep links with the people. Despite the Albanian roots of the Basilians, the authorities and the people considered them foreigners. At the time of the awakening national values and the emergence of a homogenous ethnic country, the Albanians also were disturbed by the Greek language used in the liturgy.

The survey may not devote much attention to the situation in the monastic community or the attitude of individual members toward open questions, which was ultimately not the purpose of the research, but it provides much new information about the Grottaferrata Abbey. Indeed, the book aims to inform readers about the original place of the Basilian community in the Latin Church and about the history of connections of the Albanian nation with Rome. The book helps us better realize how the "the Sons of the Eagle" entered history and to understand Catholicism as their original faith and the role of the Basilians in the relations between the Latin and the Eastern Churches.

Catholicism and Orthodoxy: a forgotten page of the history of uniatism in Albania

Ines Angeli Murzaku’s splendid new book, as with all her previous work, is marked by graceful writing, archival richness, theoretical sophistication and deep human sympathy. Attempting to “make contact with the mind and mentalities” of the monks of Grottaferrata as they labored in Albania, she offers what she terms, too modestly, “an interesting case study in the history of the Byzantine Catholic movement in a predominantly Muslim country.” It is more than that – a powerful and significant analysis of East meeting West, Christians meeting Muslims, monks meeting the world. As such, it speaks eloquently to our own fractured world, with our eagerness for oneness, our desire to be whole. To visit Grottaferrata, with its strange prayers and magnificent setting, its marvelous hospitality and wonderful sense of peace, to be reminded, as Adrian Fortescue recently remarked that “to be a Catholic does not mean giving up the venerable rites of the East.” To read Prof. Murzaku’s book is to realize, in addition, that such a place, graced and gracious, of the world yet other-worldly, has found a most worthy historian.

Ines Angeli Murzaku tackles with courage and command a very intricate subject matter, which covers a one-thousand-year-old history. The study analyzes the history of Albanian Uniatism, or better the attempts –with alternating results – to convert from Orthodoxy to Catholicism. Moreover, this topic encompasses a great number of variables. As a matter of fact, religion touches at the very heart of nations’ identity and any modification of the confessional equilibrium provokes interventions by governments and powers. In the case of Albania, depending on the period, Sultans and Czars, the Habsburg Empire, and later Mussolini’s Italy, Greece and Yugoslavia, were involved with religious matters, not to mention that every government of the independent Albania wanted to have its say in religious affairs. The study, which is based on an abundance of never before published primary-sources, analyzes the Albanian historical events through the lens of the Italian-Greek missionaries of the Abbey of Grottaferrata, which is located in the vicinity of Rome. Grottaferrata, the most ancient Basilian monastic center in the West, was founded around the year 1000 prior to the great Christian schism, and is the only Oriental reality in modern Catholicism which traces its roots to the undivided Church.

The religious-political events, which involve the study’s characters who, under opposing influences risk their lives for their convictions, unravel like in a captivating thriller. No doubt, several of the personages, including Archimandrite Germanos and Monk Daniele Barbiellini, deserve their separate biographies. The history is evolving in a profoundly Balkan atmosphere, among leaps of faith, pressing material needs, abuse of power from authorities, foreign interference, and valiant fidelity to faraway spiritual hierarchies; and all this in a country that is notoriously original for the entanglement of various spiritual traditions. Albania: this Orient within Europe, inhabited by people gazing at the Occident.

We are grateful to Ines Angeli Murzaku for illuminating such an intricate and multifaceted subject.

Professor Ines Angeli Murzaku has in this volume rendered an important service to a number of communities, including, among others, the Western Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Albanian people, and the monks of the Abbey of Grottaferrata. She follows the primary guide of modern critical historiography: Working from a careful scrutiny of the original sources to arrive at as accurate a picture of, as the Father of modern historiography, Leopold von Ranke, put it, wie es eigentlich gewesen ist, “how it actually was,” as possible (never completely “objective”), which is then analyzed in its context. As a consequence of the meticulous work of Professor Murzaku, many Christians—Eastern and Western—Muslims, and Albanians will now be able to understand better how they came to be what they are today.