Sister Act

Albania, an independent nation since 1913, was long a part of Turkey, is still 69% Mohammedan. It has, however, 100,000 Roman Catholics, 200,000 adherents of the Albanian Orthodox Church. Moreover, there are 25,000 Albanian-born Christians in the U. S. Most of the 10,000 living in New England belong to the Christian Albanian Church. The founder of this church, named Fan Stylian Noli, is a Harvard classmate (1912) of Humorist Robert Benchley, Steelman Hugh Gaddis, Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, Kermit Roosevelt. He is undoubtedly the only man who was ever, at the same time, a Harvard undergraduate, an able shotputter, an Orthodox bishop aged 19; for Fan Noli, on leaving his Turkish-ruled native land, took pains to organize the church in the U. S., getting himself named its bishop before matriculating at Harvard in 1908.

In subsequent years, Bishop Noli shuttled between the U. S. and the Balkans. For six months in 1924 he was premier of republican Albania. Then he was overthrown in a rebellion headed by Ahmed Zogu, today King Zog, and fled Albania. The husky bishop settled for a time in Vienna, then returned to Boston. There he was last week when the Princesses Myzeyen, Ruhije and Maxhide, sisters of King Zog, arrived on their U. S. tour (TIME, Feb. 28).

If the three princesses were not, as had been reported, hunting rich U. S. husbands--up to last week they had not bagged any--they were admittedly seeking to heal the breach between Bishop Noli and their brother. This they accomplished with great dispatch with the aid of the Albanian minister to the U. S., Faik Konitza, a friend of both Zog and the bishop. Minister Konitza, Bishop Noli and the three princesses chatted in Boston's Ritz-Carlton Hotel and next day the Moslem sisters, overdressed as usual, attended two Boston Albanian churches in which prayers were offered for King Zog and the people of Albania.

To the press, Minister Konitza suggested that Bishop Noli would make an excellent head for a university which Zog intends to establish in Albania. Said modest Bishop Noli, Harvard graduate summa cum laude: "I am not good enough for such an important work."

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