By Baton Haxhiu
I am neither a nationalist nor a person who sees the world through rigid borders. I am not bothered by diversity and I am not afraid of cultural influences.
On the contrary, I have always believed that identities are not rigid, but a constant flux between what we have been and what we become. But there are moments when an unusual feeling suddenly seizes you, a moment when you realize that something has shifted, something has changed without you noticing.
I experienced this feeling after the death of Anastas Yanullatos. I saw the ceremony, the honoring of him by everyone, the presence of two leaders – Edi Rama and Kyriakos Mitsotakis – in that last ritual was a solemn moment, a dignified gesture that went beyond politics. But as I watched all this, something else came to mind: not only the man who was being passed away, but what he had left behind.
When a few days later I found myself in Korça, in the city center, in front of the cathedral he had built, I realized for the first time something I had not thought about before. It was not simply a new church, it was not simply the resurgence of faith after decades of prohibition.
It was something bigger, a project that had gone beyond belief. It was a perfect Hellenic taste, an aesthetic and cultural stamp that leaves no room for doubt. A presence that, if Albanian were not spoken around, would have made me think I was not in Albania, but in some small town in Greece.
And so, a question arose for me that had nothing to do with borders or nationalism, but with something deeper: when aesthetics and architecture change in this way, does memory change as well? Does the way a city sees itself and how it will be seen in the future change as well?
Janullatos brought peace, restored faith, and built with mastery – but did he also build a new narrative, a narrative that silently speaks a different language than the one this city has spoken throughout history?
My journey to Korça began a few days after the funeral ceremony of Archbishop Anastasios Janullatos. A dignified procession, where alongside the priests and clergy, stood two men who in politics have often shown opposite worlds: Edi Rama and Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
There they were, one with his hand resting on his knee, the other with his hands clasped in front of him, two figures rarely seen standing with such humility. They honored a man who had transcended the boundaries of religion and nationality. For a moment, it seemed as if silence had fallen over everything else. Present not to defend the lines between two states, but to respect a man who built another kind of border – that of taste.
A few weeks later, as I walked through the square of Korça, under the open sky lightly shrouded in clouds, I felt that everything around me spoke of him. The great Orthodox Cathedral, the “Resurrection of Christ,” stood there like a seal of his time.
It was impossible not to see it. A presence that guided one's eyes and thoughts. All of Korça, famous for its European style, for the bourgeois spirit that inevitably carried the West and the East, now had a monument at its heart that spoke Greek.
But to understand this transformation, you need to know what came before.
The Old Cathedral of Korça – An Albanian Elegance
Before Enver's dictatorship destroyed the stones and memory, from some photos I had with me there, there had stood another Orthodox church, that of Saint George. A building that held the shadow of the city that surrounded it.
"It was modern for its time," wrote Aleksandër Meksi in his book.
Clean with two towers that not only exalted the bells, but also the taste of a community that had seen the West and was not afraid to bring it to Albania.
Those who knew this taste, Henri Çili the First, told me that its facade was restrained, almost symmetrical in its elegance, with an architectural spirit that was not subject to either Ottoman dogma or the image of Byzantine churches.
It was a church you might find in a small Italian town, or in any Balkan urban center where Austro-Hungarian influence had left its mark.
In short, the taste of the patriotic philanthropists of Korça, Turtulli and others - Çili recounted.
That church spoke Albanian in form and attitude. It was not imposing with heavy domes. It did not have that Byzantine drama. It had finesse.
And above all, there was a clear sense that Orthodoxy in Albania had taken the path to becoming something else – a union of a modern church between West and East, where the Albanian, Orthodox or not, could see himself without having the feeling of belonging to another nation.
Then came the silence. Then came the erasure. Then came Enver and, like a communist puritan, he appeared as a barbarian. He destroyed the memory.
Janullatos – The Man Who Restored Greek Faith and Taste
The narrative in Korça lacks the sense of this explanation, which connects memory with what is to come.
When Janullatos arrived in the 1990s, he didn't just come to rebuild churches. He came to rebuild a world. A world that had lost not only icons, but also words, rituals, and spirit. He showed this erasure of memory with his narrative of the future.
Henri Çili is not only angry about what Korça has experienced, but also very moved that he, Janullatos, has built 150 other churches, Çili says.
He came with peace, with a gentle smile that did not change even in the fiercest debates, and built the vision to make the Orthodox faith rise again on the ruins of communism, a friend of mine in Korça tells me.
But with it, he brought something else – a complete aesthetic, formed somewhere between Athens and Ioannina, between Epirus and the monasteries of the Peloponnese. It was the perfect Greek taste. A taste that had no dilemmas. An architectural language that left no room for doubt.
The cathedral he built in the center of Korça is the clearest evidence of this. The large dome, the arches, the stone and brick facades in perfect harmony. The two slender towers surrounding the entrance – it’s a design I’ve seen everywhere I’ve been in Greece. From Meteora to small towns like Ioannina, in every village where a church was built on a hill, the taste is the same.
If I didn't hear Albanian around me in Korça, for a moment I might believe I was in a Greek town.
Therefore, it is not just a church. It is a clear message. A message that says that here is a Byzantine spirit, here is a Hellenic spirit. A stamp that you cannot ignore. A taste that does not require permission to enter. It simply settles.
Janullatos and the taste of the future
Janullatos knew well what he was doing. He rebuilt faith, but he also rebuilt his space. He did not simply build churches. He built the future memory. A memory that will survive long, beyond his own life. A memory that one day, when a foreigner stops in Korça and raises his head towards the cathedral, will think that this land has spoken Greek more than it has spoken Albanian. Not because it is the whole truth, but because stones and domes often speak louder than people.
And when I was analyzing this, I returned to the ritual that existed in Tirana.
When I saw the prostration in front of his coffin, the latter came to mind.
Were they there for a man who built peace? Or for a man who marked the earth with his taste? Were they honoring his spiritual life or his aesthetic one? Maybe both. Because in the Balkans, you often can't separate them.
I left Korça with the feeling that Janullatos left behind not just stronger believers, but also a new map of feelings. A city that had always been proud of its Europeanism now had a Greek-speaking church at its heart. And this was perhaps his deepest legacy – a peace that walks lightly on stones that will always carry the scent of the south.
It is beauty, it is finesse. But it is also a reminder that sometimes, the language of stones can last longer than that of people. And that language, today in Korça, sounds very close to what I hear when I step foot in Greece. A Greek of stone, calm, eternal. (A2 Televizion)
