Albania finally grants citizenship to Archbishop Anastasios

The President of the Hellenic Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos thanked the Albanian government for granting Albanian nationality to Archbishop of Tirana, Durres and all Albania Anastasios, the head of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania.

Pavlopoulos made the thank you call on Tuesday to his Albanian counterpart Ilir Meta and noted that the Albanian President's initiative "is one more significant step in the direction of the further substantial improvement of relations between Greece and Albania."

The initiative to grant Archbishop Anastasios citizenship comes after Greece’s Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias made the request in a recent meeting with his Albanian counterpart Ditmir Bushati in Crete in early November.

Kotzias hailed the decision in a tweet on Christmas Eve, welcoming it as a "recognition of [Anastasios'] deeply humanitarian work and a strengthening of trust between our peoples."