…and he who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.

Above:  Blessed Gjon Koda

Image in the Public Domain

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BLESSED GJON KODA (APRIL 25, 1893-MAY 11, 1947)

Albanian Roman Catholic Priest and Martyr, 1947

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–Matthew 10:38-39, Revised Standard Version–Second Catholic Edition (2002)

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Blessed Gjon Koda comes to this, A Great Cloud of Witnesses:  An Ecumenical Calendar of Saints’ Days and Holy Days, via the Roman Catholic Church.  Information about Blessed Gjon Koda seems to be scarce.  We know what we need to know, I suppose.

Our saint, born in Janjevë (Janjevo), Serbia, on April 25, 1893, was a member of the Order of Friars Minor (the Franciscans).  Serafin was his religious name.  Koda, ordained to the priesthood, celebrated his first Mass on July 25, 1925.  He served faithfully in Lezhë, Albania, for years.

The troubled political history of Albania included the Fascist Italian occupation (1939-1943), the Nazi occupation (1943-1944), and the rise of the communist government (1944).  During the Fascist Italian occupation, the Mussolini government favored the Albanian Roman Catholics.  The predictable political backlash, which began after the Albanian communists came to power, entailed labeling all Albanian Roman Catholics as fascists.  (Communists and fascists have long opposed each other.)  In 1946, the communist government nationalized most religious institutions in the country; it seized most religious property, expelled foreign religious workers, and forbade religious groups from educating the young and operating philanthropic institutions.  Roman Catholics shared in the persecution alongside their Orthodox and Muslim neighbors.  However, the Roman Catholics had something their Orthodox and Muslim neighbors lacked:  the Papacy, an international institution, with its own authority and its headquarters in a sovereign state.  So, loyalty to the Bishop of Rome made one an enemy of the Albanian communist state.

Koda, arrested in Lezhë in the spring of 1947, endured two weeks of torture.  Authorities wanted him to confirm the party line–and lie–that his brother Franciscans were plotting against the Albanian state.  Koda refused to satisfy his torturers.  On May 11, they martyred our saint by driving nails through his throat.  He was 54 years old.  Authorities interred in the corpse in a secret grave, which remained hidden until September 16, 1994.

Holy Mother Church has formally recognized Koda.  Pope Francis declared him a Venerable then a beatus in 2016.

KENNETH RANDOLPH TAYLOR

MARCH 25, 2023 COMMON ERA

THE TWENTY-EIGHTH DAY OF LENT

THE FEAST OF THE ANNUNCIATION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST

THE FEAST OF SAINT DISMAS, PENITENT BANDIT

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Almighty God, by whose grace and power your holy martyr Blessed Gjon Koda

triumphed over suffering and was faithful even to death:

Grant us, who now remember him in thanksgiving,

to be so faithful in our witness to you in this world,

that we may receive with him the crown of life;

through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns

with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 51:1-12

Psalm 116 or 116:1-8

Revelation 7:13-17

Luke 12:2-12

–Adapted from Holy Women, Holy Men:  Celebrating the Saints (2010), 714

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