BIRMINGHAM, UK (ANS) — A Mother Teresa scholar from the UK has explained the epiphany moment in the life of two Albanian ‘national heroes’ who lived 600 years apart.
According to Matters India, India’s Complete Socioeconomic & Religious News https://mattersindia.com , in the Zoom Talk on November 23, Mother Teresa author and scholar from Birmingham University, UK, himself an Albanian, Dr Gezim Alpion explored the lives and careers of Gjergj Kastrioti (1405-1468), known mostly by the name Skanderbeg, and Mother Teresa (1910-1997), née Gonxhe Agnes Bojaxhiu, from an ethno-spiritual perspective.
The host was President of the Albanian Australian Community Association Sezar Jakupi.
The author of this story, Michael Ireland, is a self-supported media missionary with ANS. Click here to support him as a missionary journalist.
Alpion is considered the “most authoritative English-language author” on St Teresa of Calcutta, “the founder of Mother Teresa Studies,” and “one of the most intelligent and acute observers on the subject of Albanian culture.”
These two prominent persons from Albanian history, Skanderbeg and Mother Teresa, said Alpion, “gave moral boost to the Albanians in the difficult moment of their national history.” Alpion says both Skanderbeg and Mother Teresa had the turning point of their lives at age 37.
Gjergj Kastrioti, known as Skanderbeg, was an Albanian nobleman and military commander who led a rebellion against the Ottoman Empire in what is today Albania, North Macedonia, Greece, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia. A member of the noble Kastrioti family, he was sent as a hostage to the Ottoman court.
Mother Teresa née Gonxhe Agnes Bojaxhiu, revered in the Catholic Church as Saint Teresa of Calcutta, was an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary. She was born in Skopje, then part of the Kosovo Vilayet of the Ottoman Empire.née Gonxhe Agnes Bojaxhiu.
Matters India reported that in the first part of his talk Alpion drew upon the work of Karl Marx, Émile Durkheim and Sigmund Feud explored the formative impact of the early years on Skanderbeg and Mother Teresa.
Psycholanalyst Carl Jung’s ‘process of individuation,’ is a crucial stage that career experts refer to as ‘mid-life transition.’
According to Jungian psychology, individuation is the process of transforming one’s psyche by bringing the personal and collective unconscious into conscious. Individuation has a holistic healing effect on the person, both mentally and physically.
In the second part of his talk Alpion identified the reasons behind the most important decisions Skanderbeg and Mother Teresa made at the age of thirty-seven – defect from the Ottoman Army and part company with the Loreto order, respectively.
Alpion concluded that the push and pull factors identified in the talk make Skanderbeg, one of the world’s top military strategists, and St Teresa of Calcutta, the most influential religious and humanitarian icon of our times, rather ‘unlikely’ Albanian heroes.
Gëzim Alpion publications include Mother Teresa: Saint or Celebrity? (Routledge 2007), If Only the Dead Could Listen (Globic Press 2008), Encounters with Civilizations: From Alexander the Great to Mother Teresa (Routledge 2017), and Mother Teresa: The Saint and Her Nation (Bloomsbury Academic 2020).
The author of this story, Michael Ireland, is a self-supported media missionary with ANS. Click here to support him as a missionary journalist.
