Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home People

Maria’s faith helped her through the dark years of communism

byStaff writers
5 May 2013 - Updated on 16 March 2021
Reading Time: 3 mins read
AA
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

ALMOST every day at 6pm, the sounds of the organ resonate in the brick Catholic church on Kavaja Street, in Tirana, Albania.

The hymns may vary, but the organist, Maria Dhimitri, is always the same.

It had been that way for nearly 23 years and could have been double that, Mrs Dhimitri said in a recent interview, if it had not been for a brutally enforced ban on religion in her country in south-eastern Europe from 1967 to 1990.

“They banned all religious practice,” the 76-year-old musician told Catholic News Service from an annex of Sacred Heart Catholic Church.

Her smile belied the “long” and “painful suffering” that she agreed to talk about one recent Saturday in April.

“They said God didn’t exist. I couldn’t come to church or pray or speak of God at all,” she said of the communist regime that came to power in her country soon after the Second World War.

The regime made worshipping increasingly difficult and finally imposed a ban on religion in the country in 1967, making Albania the first and only constitutionally atheist state.

Mrs Dhimitri was teaching piano at one of the country’s top conservatories for music in the capital, Tirana, and was married with two small children when the ban went into effect.

“All the priests were arrested and killed, or put in jail,” she said of its rapid and violent enforcement by government officials, who immediately closed off every church and mosque in the country.

Having been raised by a “staunchly Catholic family” from the traditionally Catholic stronghold of Shkoder, Mrs Dhimitri said “to stop praying … never crossed my mind”.

Related Stories

Nationwide rosary event happening for Australia’s patroness this Saturday

Francis offers advice on politics: Seek unity, don’t get lost in conflict

Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says

She said she knew that to show any sign of faith in public would endanger not just her, but the lives of her entire family, so she resorted to praying in the secrecy of the family’s Tirana apartment, with utmost care and sometimes “under the covers”.

“As they say, walls have ears, and there were (state) spies everywhere,” said Mrs Dhimitri, who said her children understood instinctively not to speak of their Catholic faith.

“We prayed at home, in private, out of sight of the neighbours,” Mrs Dhimitri said, adding that “many other Catholics and Orthodox prayed secretly as well … and many Muslims, too”.

“On Christmas or Easter we might cook a chicken, or have a small cake,” she said of the “hidden celebrations” during the years of the ban.

She said her husband, now deceased, had been raised Orthodox Christian but had joined the Communist Party after World War II.

He did not pray, Mrs Dhimitri said, but never tried to prevent her or her children from doing so at home.

“He became disillusioned with the party and hated it, after he saw how it operated. But he remained a member,” she said, surmising that this official affiliation allowed her to keep her job teaching, despite her reputation of having been from a religious family.

“When you were from Shkoder, with a name like Maria, everyone knew you were Catholic,” she said.

Under the ban on religion, Sacred Heart was converted into “first a cinema, and then a theatre and then a club”, none of which Mrs Dhimitri ever thought of frequenting “because I knew it had been a sacred place”, she said.

After the fall of communism in Albania in the early 1990s, the still-standing churches and mosques around the country started to reopen.

Sacred Heart was completely dilapidated, with no glass in the windows and no furniture left inside.

“When it rained, the water poured right in. There was only a table left, in the middle of the church,” Mrs Dhimitri said.

She organised a small choir of neighbourhood children and taught them how to sing by listening to her.

“My voice was the organ,” she said.

Italian priests finally donated an organ, which Mrs Dhimitri has played at Masses ever since, “every day … unless I am sick or something”, she said, adding “I feel I do something beautiful for the Church.”

She said one of the first to come to Mass and hear her play after Sacred Heart reopened was Blessed Teresa of Kolkata, possibly the world’s most famous Albanian.

“She was cordial and saint-like and blessed me and my children,” Mrs Dhimitri said.

Despite many hardships, Mrs Dhimitri insisted God has given her miracles: her daughter, son and grandson – “and the fact that I am in good health and can continue to come here and play”, she said.

Asked if she resented people of the former regime – some of whom are still in power – for the ban on religion and consequent jailing and death of so many faithful, Mrs Dhimitri paused, then stood up.

She pointed to a painting of a Catholic priest she said died a few years ago and said he had spent many years in Albanian prisons because of the ban.

Before dying, the priest “met by chance the man who had informed on him … and forgave him”, she said.

 

ShareTweet
Previous Post

Time to honour our revered war dead

Next Post

Monument of Mercy restored

Staff writers

Related Posts

Catholic relationship advisers offer five tips to look after your mental health
QLD

Nationwide rosary event happening for Australia’s patroness this Saturday

19 May 2022
Francis offers advice on politics: Seek unity, don’t get lost in conflict
News

Francis offers advice on politics: Seek unity, don’t get lost in conflict

19 May 2022
Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says
Faith

Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says

18 May 2022
Next Post

Monument of Mercy restored

NDIS 'opens doors'

Historic moves at All Hallows' and the Mater

Popular News

  • Angel’s Kitchen serves hot meals to the hungry in Southport

    Angel’s Kitchen serves hot meals to the hungry in Southport

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Here are the stories of 10 new saints being canonised this Sunday

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI turned 95 on a ‘very happy’ day

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Queensland election: The pro-life political parties committed to abortion law reforms

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Catholic relationship advisers offer five tips to look after your mental health
QLD

Nationwide rosary event happening for Australia’s patroness this Saturday

by Joe Higgins
19 May 2022
0

FAITHFUL nationwide were getting out their rosary beads for a prayer event in honour of Australia’s patroness...

Francis offers advice on politics: Seek unity, don’t get lost in conflict

Francis offers advice on politics: Seek unity, don’t get lost in conflict

19 May 2022
Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says

Holiness is possible and the Church provides tools to attain it, cardinal says

18 May 2022
Church workers have helped more than 1.2 million Ukrainians during the war, Caritas says

Church workers have helped more than 1.2 million Ukrainians during the war, Caritas says

18 May 2022
Minority Catholic woman takes pride in Asia’s overlooked saints

Minority Catholic woman takes pride in Asia’s overlooked saints

18 May 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping