CHURCH OF SAINT ALEXANDER (SHËN LLEZHRIT), OROSH
The seat of Oroshi, isolated in those mountains, is quite far from the nearest villages having nearby only the cemetery with a view from the church.
It is established that during Ottoman Empire, the abbots were no more than village priests, serving the communities of Orosh and Spaç villages. The income was provided by the few lands that were left to the Abbey and by the donations of Propaganda Fides, which appointed the abbots.
After a tiring journey through steep paths filled with hospitality, but also with surprising traps, Edith Durham feels at home in Mirdita.
They make their first stop at the Holy Mountain, where the ruins of the ancient Benedictine monastery are still, and then go down to Orosh, where the abbey and the tower /stone house of captain Marka Gjoni were. "The abbot knows many things," writes Durham, "among other things, he knew how to set up his headquarters in one of the most beautiful places in Europe, he was the brain of Mirdita, perhaps the strongest personality in all of Northern Albania."
The abbot was Preng Doçi, a very interesting figure.
Born in 1846 and educated in Shkodër and Rome, he had served as a parish priest in Mirdita in ‘79 year of the XIX century. A staunch opponent of the Ottoman occupation, he had entered into an agreement with the Montenegrins. This caused his expulsion from Mirdita. Propaganda Fide in the Vatican sent him as a missionary to Newfoundland in the USA in 1881. He is thought to be the first Albanian who lived for a long period in America. Then, for years, he served as the secretary of the apostolic nuncio in Calcutta, exactly where, years later, Mother Teresa would establish her famous mission.
Preng Doçi was allowed to return to Mirdita only in 1888.
A year later, he was ordained abbot of the Abbey of Saint Lleshi in Orosh, a position that enabled him to become one of the most important figures in Mirdita. In 1899, together with two other priests, Ndoc Nikajn and Gjergj Fishta, he was the co-founder of the "Bashkimi" society, from which we have today the Latin alphabet of Albanian.
"There is no need, writes Durham, to tell you about the church, designed by himself, the largest of all the highlands; not even for his big, furnished house all according to European style; not even for his princely hospitality. Everyone who visits Shkodra and then take a trip to mountains, knows this.
When I went there, he himself was not at home, but his sister greeted me cordially as if we were her old friends and the priest of Oroshi, did me the honors of the house.
And Oroshi without the abbot is like "Hamlet" without “Hamlet"!
