FOREWORD

NGA GONXHE BOJAXHIU DERI TE NËNË TEREZA FROM GONXHE BOJAXHIU TO MOTHER THERESA

The book "From Gonxhe Bojaxhiu to Mother Teresa - A saga about the life of Albanian Catholics from Skopje", includes a corpus of archival materials on the life and family path of Gonxhe Bojaxhiu-Mother Teresa, some of which are going to be published for the first time in this book. On the basis of these documents it can be concluded that the Bojaxhiu Family had carried the seed of renewal from generation to generation, from time to time, even when it was in danger of oblivion and extinction.

Mother Teresa's connections with Albania and Kosovo, were the result of circumstances and causalities that makes this figure closer to the average observer, who at an earlier time may have been skeptical of Mother Teresa's role and contribution to the articulation and just affirmation of the humane and freedom-loving causes of the people to whom it belonged. But now, in the light of new documents and evidence. Mother Teresa reappears before our eyes like a phoenix emerging silently from the mists of time, and beginning to illuminate the invisible sides of communication with some of the decision-making factors, as it was the case with US President Bill Clinton, who himself has confirmed that it was Mother Teresa the one that motivated him to undertake a humanitarian campaign of unprecedented proportions to save a people from the danger of physical extermination.

A figure that nowadays continues to be the object of study and research, can not remain only as a framework within which develops national and global thinkings, but also as a name that honors many institutions, foundations, associations and infrastructural objects. In the book that we are presenting to the readers, some of these names related to Mother Teresa have been identified, which in the last instance is one more responsibility to advance the human and spiritual creed of Mother Teresa.

The book embodies the first institutional commitment from her hometown Skopje, to present St. Mother Teresa as objectively as possible as her figure deserves to be treated. The title of the book itself deciphers the leitmotif that pervades two phases of Mother Teresa's life, which begins with the young Gonxhe from Skopje, and continues with St. Teresa of the whole world, a leitmotif that is related to the national identity and the

place where she was born. She was born in the spiritual city, which in addition to being the center of Christianity in the Balkan Peninsula, is also the birthplace of the great historical figures such as the Byzantine emperor with Illyrian origin Justinian, Andrea and Pjeter Bogdani, Mihael Suma, Dom Ndue Bytyci, Don Lazer Mjeda, Father Zef Ramaj, the patriots Kole Bojaxhiu and Gasper Gjini, the researcher and author of the most argumentative book of our uninterrupted Illyrian-Arberian-Albanian autochthony "The Skopje - Prizren Diocese through centuries"..

Gonxhe Bojaxhiu finished her primary school in Albanian language in Skopje, at the Catholic Church "Heart of Christ", same place where she was baptized and will be associated with this church throughout her childhood. She was very active in the church choir. Most of her time of the day she was spending in the Old Bazaar of Skopje, next to her father who at that time had a gold workshop. The Skopje Bazaar was famous for its ethnic and religious diversity, and it is no coincidence that she will be molded in the spirit of this diversity, which will later help in committing her humanitarian mission.

From her family she received the education, humanism, generosity and especially she was influenced by the national customs (Canon), which will conceive in her an identity that prepared her to be a world-class figure. Completed with these premises she will receive the call to dedicate herself to God and the sacred mission of humanity, which was her activity as long as she lived. She testified with concrete work in order to come to the aid of those who were abandoned by society (orphans, the sick and all others without racial, ethnic and religious differences).

This posthumous commitment will cause the Holy See to undertake concrete steps to sanctify this major figure. Her father, Kole Bojaxhiu, will notice something sacred at Gonxhe, even from her early childhood. He predicted that soon he would die, so he would transfer the ownership of the house to her. This house was the one where she was born and raised, and the same was located in the main square of Skopje, in the Albanian Catholic neighborhood. At the beginning of 1928, she had made a request to dedicate herself to the mission of God, and after receiving a positive answer, according to the rules of the mission, she had to repay the real estate that was in her name. According to the official document that we have in the book, the house that she had in her name, she carries in the name of her mother Drane Bojaxhiu.

NGA GONXHE BOJAXHIU DERI TE NËNË TEREZA FROM GONXHE BOJAXHIU TO MOTHER THERESA

The book "From Gonxhe Bojaxhiu to Mother Teresa - A saga about the life of Albanian Catholics from Skopje" is a continuation of our efforts to illuminate a part of our history which for a long time was deprived of normal communication with the general public. This time the object of interest is one of the most emblematic families of the Catholics of Skopje - the Bojaxhiu family, from which emerged the most prominent names that left to future generations the glory and honor of being part of a postRenaissance constellation, which aimed to remove darkness from the life of Albanians, in the early twentieth century.

Kole Bojaxhiu, a pillar that kept alive the rhythm of radical changes in the cultural, social and infrastructural life of Albanians and all fellow citizens in the most dramatic periods of history, wouldn’t have gained true fame and glory in case he would not have contributed to the spiritual upliftment of his family and an entire generation to which he belonged. In the same spirit was born and raised his sister Gonxhe, who will later become a figure of planetary proportions who will radiate kindness, love and warmth to all people with broken hopes. This was Mother Teresa, whose life and work will continue to be a permanent preoccupation of our Department within the ISCHA.

Skender Asani

Nora Maliqi Zylali

Albert Ramaj

Skopje, july 2020

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