Monday, January 16, 2006

Cardinal Angelo Scola of Venice meets Kosovo officials

PRISTINA, Serbia-Montenegro (AP) - Cardinal Angelo Scola, the patriarch of Venice, met with Kosovo's prime minister and other officials Monday.

Scola will also meet the deputy head of the U.N. mission in Kosovo, Larry Rossin, a U.N. statement said.

The cardinal came to the disputed province to attend the funeral last week of Bishop Mark Sopi, the head of the Catholic Church in Kosovo, who died of a heart attack.

Sopi, 67, was buried Saturday in the central Kosovo village of Bince, where he was born.

Sopi, an ethnic Albanian, was appointed Kosovo's bishop in 1996.

The late bishop was very close to Kosovo's ailing President Ibrahim Rugova, who is suffering from lung cancer.

Pope Benedict XVI named Zef Gashi, the Archbishop of Bar, a town in neighboring Montenegro, as the acting head of the Roman Catholic Church in Kosovo, a senior church official said Monday.

Gashi, who was born in Kosovo, immediately took on the duty of running the province's church, said Don Shan Zefi.

Kosovo is predominantly Muslim. But some 4 percent of its people are ethnic Albanian Catholics.

Kosovo, which officially remains a province of Serbia-Montenegro, has been administered by the United Nations since 1999. Talks to determine its future status will start later this year.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The serbs destroyed in cen 11-12 all albanian catholic church in kosova and some of them they named orthodoxe church.
I have some questions why the battle of Kosova whas called black aigles or black birds.
The Ottomans whas in Nis in 1360 why the Serbs did fight them in Nis or Smedrevo but in Kosova.
Why the doughter of Car lazar and Milica whas the wife of Beytazin 1 turkish empire.
Stefan lazarovic whas valaque of the Ottoman empire in 1427 he would lost the battle in Prizren the Albanians whas victory Stefan and his brother Vuk lazarevic would bee killed by Musa becoused they lost the battle in 1427