TIRANA, Albania — Albania’s Orthodox Church on Sunday elected Joan Pelushi as its new leader following the death in January of Archbishop Anastasios, who had revived the church after the fall ...

TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Albania’s Orthodox Church on Sunday elected Joan Pelushi as its new leader following the death in January of Archbishop Anastasios, who had revived the church after the ...

Joan Pelushi, 69, worked at the Tirana Psychiatric Hospital until 1990, when the communist leadership collapsed. He studied in the United States at the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology.

The new Primate will need to be savvy, navigating between conflicting pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian currents in the small but opinionated Albanian Orthodox Church. For the first time in decades ...