Prishtina, 10 January 2026
Honoured Bishop Dode Gjergji,
Dear priests and nuns,
Honoured representatives of religious communities,
Honoured leaders and representatives of state institutions and political entities in the Republic of Kosovo, colleagues from the Assembly and the Government,
Honoured international guests,
Dear family members of the Bishops we commemorate today,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Sisters and brothers,
On this Saturday, with rainy weather that in itself makes us reflective, right here at the Bogdanipolis Center near the cathedral in Pristina, we have gathered to remember two distinguished figures of Kosovo’s religious, cultural, and social and national life in Kosovo.
Today we are commemorating two historic figures who belong to the spiritual, civic, and political history of our country: Bishop Nike Prela on the 30th anniversary of his passing into eternity, and Bishop Mark Sopi on the 20th anniversary of his passing into eternity.
These two men were not merely religious leaders. They were bearers of a high public ethic, representatives of a rare civic morality, and witnesses of a time when rights, freedom, and human dignity were not guaranteed at all, but on the contrary had to be defended every day, often in circumstances of extraordinary danger. In the years when Kosovo was experiencing one of the darkest periods of its modern existence, when Serbia’s oppressive system aimed not only at political subjugation, but also at the destruction of human dignity and national identity, these two shepherds of souls knew well that their mission could not be limited only to liturgical service. They understood clearly that the historical circumstances required more: they required moral responsibility, civic courage and bearing the burden of reason at a time when violence was trying to impose itself as a norm.
Bishop Nike Prela stood out for a rare stance of active wisdom. He was not a man of loud rhetoric, but of moral weight. In the face of a repressive state apparatus, which sought to reduce the citizen of Kosovo to an object of subjugation, he remained a calm but unwavering voice of human conscience. He defended the human being not only as a believer, but as a human being, as a citizen, and as an Albanian. In this stance lies his historical greatness. Because at a time when religious identities are often abused or instrumentalised, Bishop Nike Prela testified that faith, when linked to the idea of preserving community and cultivating the human, becomes a shield for the concrete human being – the one who was at risk of being turned into a number, into a statistic, into a nameless victim in the face of an inhuman system.
His resistance was not built on harsh words, but on the deep conviction that historical and human right cannot be erased by violence. He represented that kind of moral leadership that does not seek power, but ethical authority; that does not impose, but convinces; that does not exclude, but unites; with love, everywhere, for everyone.
Bishop Mark Sopi, inheriting this moral and historical burden, raised Kosovo’s testimony onto the international stage. His testimony in the U.S. Congress constitutes one of the most meaningful moments in the moral articulation of Kosovo’s cause in the international arena. He did not go there to seek mercy, but to testify to the truth – a truth lived, experienced, and documented by the daily suffering of our people. In that hall, before the representatives of one of the most powerful democratic institutions in the world and in the history of humankind, he spoke with clear language, with restraint, and with dignity. He made visible what propaganda tried to conceal: that in Kosovo there was not unfolding an internal and local conflict with sporadic tensions, still less against an ethnic or religious minority, but a decades-long injustice against a concrete people that was now taking on the most brutal form of Serbia’s state crime. And he did this not as a politician, but as a spiritual shepherd who had chosen not to be separated from the fate of his own people and the flock of his compatriots. He spoke without hatred, but also without fear. And precisely this balance between restraint and courage made his word powerful. Because the truth, when spoken with responsibility and dignity, is transformed into moral and political force at the same time.
The testimonies, but also the examples, of Bishop Nike Prela and Bishop Mark Sopi, remind us of the written testimonies of their three predecessor Catholic friars: Gjon Bisaku, Shtjefen Kurti and Luigj Gashi, who in 1930 sent the League of Nations a letter on the situation of Albanians in Yugoslavia, in which they denounced oppression on ethnic and religious grounds and the crimes of the then state of royal Yugoslavia against our people.
These two men, Bishop Nike Prela and Bishop Mark Sopi, became bridges between the spiritual and the civic, between religious faith and state responsibility, between suffering Kosovo and the democratic world. Today, the independent Republic of Kosovo exists as a free and sovereign state. But, dear attendees, this freedom is not only the result of political, diplomatic and international processes. It is also the fruit of the moral resistance of those who, in the most difficult, most dangerous times, refused to accept injustice as normality. In this sense, Bishop Nike Prela and Bishop Mark Sopi are part of the foundations of the moral values upon which our state and the freedom we enjoy have been built.
Therefore, this commemoration is at the same time also a call that refreshes our collective memory, whose values have kept us alive and make us flourish as a society to have human dignity, dialogue with one another, unconditional solidarity, moral courage, patriotism, and humaneness. It is the call of a legacy that lovingly obliges us to build a state where freedom is accompanied by responsibility and where truth remains a guiding compass.
In the name of the Government of the Republic of Kosovo and in my personal name as acting Prime Minister, I express the deepest gratitude for the work and legacy of Bishop Nike Prela and Bishop Mark Sopi. May this legacy remain a permanent guide for our society and for the generations who will come after us.
May their memory live forever!
