A saint under investigation

A saint under investigation

Prosecutors have opened a formal investigation against Eleonora Bregu, head of the religious sect of Saint Eleonora in Tirana. Saint Eleonora has been accused of making a false denunciation. She is the founder of a new religion inspired by Bektashi's mysticism but self-declared the original Albanian religion. The investigation began after the alleged denounced an attempt to kill her by poison. "Two people forcibly entered in my room and made me drink the poison", the "saint" said during media interviews. According to her followers, this is a religious war, "because other traditional religions do not tolerate a new religion directed by a woman".

Since the beginning, Tirana newspapers and televisions have been very skeptical about the authenticity of the story. "Eleonora tricks again", was the title of daily Shqip, when the story was first published. Even before that the police had reached a conclusion; meanwhile, newspapers have deliberately denounced the story as false. "Saint Eleonora has spoken as the rest of our politicians", said a TV Klan journalist in a satirical show.

After some days of investigation, police reported that no trace of any poison was found in the blood of Eleonora Bregu. Upon this declaration, the saint was declared under formal investigation for false denunciation.

Saint Eleonora's work had been several times under media scrutiny. After 25 years of total religious ban, Albania is now full of spectacular saints who proclaim to restore health and solve spiritual problems for those depressed. Typically, women from rural areas go to such spiritual leaders to have babies instead of going to gynecologists. Some of those saints work as "alternative doctors" and claim to have a direct link with heaven. Some of those "medics" are rich enough to advertise their activity on national televisions.

In 2001, a media campaign began to inform the public that an alternative doctor named Gazmend Malaj was simply a fraud. Mr. Malaj, a former emigrant to Germany, was head of a small political party. He claimed to resolve medical problems such as depression, which in the popular Albanian jargon are known as "bad eye" or "bad spirit". Other "alternative doctors", claim to solve myopia, while Saint Eleonora claimed that in some degree, she could cure cancer.

Some of the newspapers stopped the publication of such advertising and begun investigations over his activities. Gazmend Malaj, was constricted to quit his activity after months of media investigation.

Saint Eleonora, which also proclaims to have a personal contact with the divine entity, is accused of using her conversations with God to grab a valuable amount of urban land, which is owned by other people. Owners of the land, in which saint Eleonora has built her cult, have asked to get their land back. Their attempts, however, have been obstructed by a strong political support for saint Eleonora. In 2001, when the court of Tirana decided that the saint's cult needed to be closed and the land given back to the owners, several supporters of the saint, including a professor of law at the University of Tirana, entered a hunger strike.

In the same year, Saint Eleonora supported the electoral campaign of Monika Kryemadhi, the wife of the then Prime Minister Ilir Meta. Several intellectuals have therefore publicly declared that they believe in Saint Eleonora. Artan Fuga, a professor of Philosophy, at the University of Tirana and in France, has written the preface on one of saint Eleonora's books.

Despite this, Tirana journalists massively consider saint Eleonora as simply another fraud.

Mysticism has a long history in the Albanian culture. Many hundreds of years of isolation have conserved several aspects of paganism and mysticism, which have been imported into the Bektashi's Shiite order, giving a new look to paganism. Bektashi's “tyrbe” or “tekke” (places of worship) are considered as holy places not just from the Muslim parts of the population, but also from the Christian population. Bektashi's mysticism has inspired also the Albanian brand of the "alternative doctors".

Several intellectuals and politicians, support Bektashism, as they see it as the national religion because it uses the Albanian as the official language.