In office 1937-1939 Name Eulogios Lauriotis | Role Religious Leader Died 1961, Athens, Greece | |
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Church Church of Constantinople, Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania | ||
Eulogios Kourilas Lauriotes (Greek: Ευλόγιος Κουρίλας Λαυριώτης, Albanian: Evlogji Kurila) (1880–1961) was a bishop of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Albania. He was the Orthodox metropolitan bishop of Korçë (Korytsa) in Albania between 1937 and 1939, and a professor of philosophy and author on religious matters. He later became one of the leaders of the Northern Epirus movement, propagating that Greece should annex southern Albania.
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Life
He was born in the village of Ziçisht (Zititsa, in Greek) (then Ottoman Empire, today in Albania) in 1880. He was of Greek origin. During his youth he was attracted by ascetic and monastic ideals and joined the monastic community of Mount Athos. He graduated from the local Athonite School (1901) and the Phanar Greek Orthodox College in Istambul. He continued his studies in the Philosophy department of the University of Athens, where he acquired his Ph.D. in Humanities. He continued studies in Germany. Kourilas also participated in the Greek Struggle for Macedonia and during the Balkan Wars (1912–1913) he was in charge of 100 armed men, among them many priests, that fought for Greece in the area of Chalkidiki.
After an agreement with the Albanian authorities, in 1937, the Ecumenical Patriarchate chose a number of highly educated religious personalities for key positions in the recently declared as autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania. Among them where Panteleimon Kotokos as metropolitan of Gjirokastër and Eulogios Kourilas as metropolitan of Korçë. When the communist regime of Enver Hoxha came to power in Albania in 1945, he was declared an "enemy of the state" and was deprived from the Albanian citizenship. By then he was already living in Greece where, parallel to his academic work, together with Panteleimon Kotokos became the heads of the Northern Epirus Central Committee propagating that parts of southern Albania, known among Greeks as Northern Epirus should be awarded to Greece. He became professor at School of Philosophy of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1935–1937) and of the University of Athens (1942–1949).
He donated a significant part (10,000 volumes) of his library to the University of Ioannina.
He died in 1961, Stratonike, Chalkidiki.
Works
Eulogios Kourilas wrote several historical, philosophical and theological books in Greek. His main works are (titles translated from Greek):