Fan Noli (1882-1965)

In the 1950s, when the State Security opened a file on Fan Noli, he had already been living in the United States for more than 20 years. Following the Second World War, he had supported the Albanian government and sought to secure recognition of Albania by the US government. Highly respected within the Albanian diaspora, he was honorary president of “Vatra” and led the Albanian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the United States, which he had helped establish.

During this period, amid growing dissatisfaction with communist policies, the State Security sought to strengthen its connections with Noli. At the same time, Noli requested assistance from the Albanian state to send a bishop and two priests to the United States, and expressed interest in republishing his works and in Albanian historical studies.

Fan Noli (1882–1965) was an important figure in 20th-century Albanian culture and history: an Orthodox clergyman, politician, diplomat, man of letters, and musician. Over the course of his career, he held a number of public and state positions, including member of parliament (April 1921–September 1923), minister, Prime Minister (1924), editor-in-chief of the newspaper Dielli, honorary chairman of the “Vatra” association, and Archbishop of the Albanian Orthodox Church in America.