Eastern Orthodox Christians immigrating to the United States usually brought their distinct liturgies and languages with them. However, the case of the Albanians was different. In 1907 Albania was not yet an independent nation but under Ottoman rule, as it had been since the 14th century. Over the centuries a majority of ethnic Albanians—who were mostly Christian prior to Ottoman hegemony—converted to Islam due to Ottoman influence and policies. Albanians who retained Orthodox Christianity typically associated it with the Greek language, as Orthodox schools and churches used Greek. Greek also functioned as a lingua franca in Epirus, a border region where Albanian- and Greek-speaking people mixed. During the 19th century elite Orthodox Albanians often identified closely with Greek nationalism, viewing Muslim Albanians with some degree of mistrust and hostility. Exposure to Greek nationalism and other independence movements eventually catalyzed a separate Albanian nationalist movement spearheaded by Albanian writerNaum Veqilharxhi, who stressed the importance of the Albanian language and culture. In 1905 Albanian Orthodox priest Kristo Negovani preached the Divine Liturgy in Albanian for the first time, ultimately leading to his assassination on the orders of Bishop Karavangelis of Kastoria, and later the retaliatory assassination of Bishop Photios of Korçë. This ethno-religious violence further inflamed tensions between Albanian and Greek nationalists.
Incident
In 1907 a young Albanian emigrant to the United States named Kristaq Dishnica died of influenza in Hudson, Massachusetts. Dishnica was an Albanian patriot and nationalist. Since the Greek Orthodox Church considered Dishnica excommunicated due to his Albanian nationalist beliefs, no Orthodox church or clergy in the area would perform his funeral rites. Dishnica was buried in a Worcester, Massachusetts, cemetery without religious services, angering the Albanians of Massachusetts. Fan Noli—an Albanian who had emigrated one year earlier to Boston, and at that time a church cantor—recognized this as an opportunity to serve the spiritual needs of his own community and to champion the cause of religious and political freedom in Albania. Noli was able to garner the support of Archbishop Platon, head of the Russian Orthodox Church in the United States, who ordained Noli as a priest on 18 March 1908 at the Cathedral of St. Nicholas in New York City. A week later Noli was appointed administrator of the Albanian Orthodox Mission in America, and later elevated to the rank of Mitred Archmandrite.
