Living in Tirana, Albania in the early 1990s was an exciting privilege. Under the communist dictator Enver Hoxha, Albania had become one of the most isolated places on the planet. All communication with the outside world was closely monitored; being found listening to radio from overseas was a serious crime, and religion was totally banned in the secular state. It was illegal to call your son John or to grow a moustache because these were seen as intrinsically faith-based behaviours and religion was to play no part in public life.
Today marks the 70th anniversary of when Hoxha was declared the leader of the People's Republic of Albania, beginning that era of intense religious and political persecution.
When I started living in Tirana a few years after Hoxha's death, I discovered that the attempted suffocation of religion had instead instigated an appetite for it. There was a great desire for conversation about God and huge demand for the Bible; a book banned under Hoxha's rule. Families reclaimed their religious heritage – 70 per cent Islamic and 30 per cent Christian. These different faith communities found a way to live peacefully together, as they had done for over a millennia.
I learned a lot from the Albanian people's hunger for spiritual things. Those times of discussion, debate, disagreement and discovery transformed my own appetite and understanding of the Christian faith, culture, identity, truth and grace.
Dear God.
Show us how we can learn – from our neighbours, from our past, from our troubles
Show us how we can learn – with grace, with courage and with humility.
Show us how we can live – with differences, with discussions, with discovery.
In the name of the one who taught us to pray and to live, Amen.
This is an adapted version of Krish Kandiah's Prayer for the Day, which he will be giving every day on Radio 4 this week. You can listen to the original broadcast here.
