The Orthodox Church Of Epirus

True Canonical Orthodoxy


The Kingdom Of Epirus

 

In 1912, 482 years after the Turks had come to Epirus, the Epirate forces liberated much of what would later be called Northern Epirus. The Epirate border was placed north of the cities of Himara, Tepeleni and Pogrodets.

In 1913, the Florence Protocol ceded all of Northern Epirus to Albania. The violation of the principle of self-determination of peoples was justified on the grounds that the Kingdom of Albania had to be provided with an adequate territorial dominion. The people of Epirus, seeing their legitimate rights betrayed by the European powers, rose up, not tolerating the transition from Ottoman to Albanian oppression.

In February 1914, the war of liberation from the Albanian occupation began and the independence forces occupied much of what is now Albanian territory. Albania then requested the intervention of the great powers of the time; and on May 5, 1914 the Protocol of Corfu was signed, drawn up by an International Control Committee formed by Great Britain, France, Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russia and Italy. This protocol, accepted unconditionally by the Kingdom of Albania, guaranteed Epirus autonomy within the Albanian State, but this autonomy was never applied. Epirus, however, managed to govern itself from about 1914 to 1916, when Albania by force crushed any aspiration to independence. Many patriots took the path of voluntary exile, others laid down their arms waiting for better times, while an independence movement remained alive in hiding.

In the 1930s, Albania was annexed by a plebiscite to the Kingdom of Italy and His Majesty Vittorio Emanuele III, King of Italy and Emperor of Ethiopia, assumed the title of King of Albania.

In 1942 in the middle of the Second World War, the Liberation Front of Northern Epirus arose. The following year, the Albanian and Greek communist partisans attacked the Epirate forces; and with the establishment of the Enver Hoxa regime the people of Epirus once again lost their freedom.

The Monarchical Government in exile and the Holy Orthodox Autocephalous Church of Epirus formally recognized in 1998 Prince Alexander of Epirus residing in the United States as a legitimate Sovereign. H.R.H. Alexander with open letters, dated March 25, 2001, appointed a Regent, H.R.H. Prince Davide Pozzi Sacchi of Santa Sofia, with the faculty of restoring the Epirate nobility, of establishing Orders of Chivalry, of establishing academies to promote the culture and history of the people of Epirus. Alexander's sovereign patent letters are de facto and by law a full abdication in favor of the Regent to whom fons honorum, ius gladii, ius imperii and ius majestatis have been conferred.

 

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