Venerable Shtjefën Kurti

Shtjefën Kurti (24 December 1898 – 20 October 1971) was an Albanian Roman Catholic priest killed during a period of communist persecution. Kurti served as a priest during a volatile period for his nation in which communist repression enjoined state atheism and led to strict rules being imposed that prevented clerics from performing their duties. Kurti continued to function as a priest when required which saw him arrested with the accusation that he was colluding with spies. Kurti was arrested for the final time when it had been alleged that he secretly baptized a child which was forbidden by the regime. He was sentenced to death and executed by firing squad. Kurti was beatified alongside other Martyrs of Albania killed during the communist repression on 5 November 2016 after their collective beatification was approved seven months prior. His liturgical feast is not affixed to the date of his death but rather on the date of the beatification as is the case with those beatified alongside him. Shtjefën Kurti was born on 24 December 1898 in Ferizaj as the sixth child of Jak and Katrine Kurti. Kurti studied in Graz and Feldkirch as well as in Innsbruck and at Rome; the Jesuits oversaw his education at one stage. He further studied at Propaganda Fide in Rome since 10 January 1919. Kurti was ordained as a priest in Rome on 13 May 1924. He then acted as a parish priest in Skopje and Novoselo near Gjakova from 1921 until 1929 but the murder of fellow Albanian priest Shtjefën Gjeçovi prompted Kurti to flee for Romania. It was there that he wrote a memorandum to the League of Nations regarding the persecution of Catholic Albanian citizens in Kosovo which was dated on 5 May 1930. Father Kurti would soon move on to serve as a priest in Shna Prendja (now Krujë) as well as in Gurës and Tirana. On 16 September 1946 he sent a letter to Pope Pius XII informing him of the persecution and violence that was being perpetrated against the Church.