Nikollë Prennushi and 37 companions

After the Second World War, Albania suffered under the communist dictatorship of Enver Hoxha. The regime undertook a systematic eradication of all religious practice, culminating in 1967 when Albania proclaimed itself the "first atheist state in the world." Churches were closed, destroyed, or transformed into warehouses and sports halls, and the clandestine celebration of sacraments (such as baptism) was punishable by death.

The Catholic Church was particularly targeted. The authorities attempted to force the clergy to break its ties with the Holy See to found a "national Church" subject to the regime. Archbishop Vinçenc Prennushi, as Primate of Albania, categorically refused this proposal from Enver Hoxha, affirming his absolute fidelity to the Pope. Arrested on May 19, 1947, he was sentenced to twenty years in prison and forced labor. Subjected to terrible physical and psychological torture, he died of exhaustion in the prison of Durrës on March 19, 1949.

Among his companions, testimonies of heroic fidelity abound: - Monsignor Frano Gjini, Bishop of Lezhë, also refused to separate from Rome. He was executed by firing squad on March 11, 1948, in Shkodër, declaring that his spirit and heart remained united with the Pope. - Maria Tuci, a young teacher and postulant with the Stigmatine Sisters, was arrested in 1949. For defending her faith and her chastity before her torturers, she suffered extreme cruelty and died from her injuries at the hospital in Shkodër on October 24, 1950. - The Franciscan priest Çiprian Nika was executed by firing squad on March 11, 1948. His last words recorded by the tribunal were: "Long live Christ the King! We forgive our enemies. Albania does not die with us!" - Other priests, such as the Jesuit father Giovanni Fausti or the diocesan priest Shtjefën Kurti (executed by firing squad in 1971 for having clandestinely baptized a child in a labor camp), illustrate the diversity and depth of this choral testimony.

The memory of the martyrs, long stifled by the regime, resurfaced after the fall of communism in 1990. The beatification process officially opened on September 4, 2002, in Shkodër. The diocesan phase of the inquiry concluded on December 8, 2010. The Positio super martyrio was submitted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in July 2015. On April 26, 2016, Pope Francis authorized the promulgation of the decree recognizing the martyrdom of Mgr Vinçenc Prennushi and his 37 companions, thus paving the way for their beatification.

The beatification ceremony took place on November 5, 2016, in the square of Saint Stephen's Cathedral in Shkodër, Albania. It was presided over, in the name of Pope Francis, by Cardinal Angelo Amato, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

As martyrs, their beatification did not require the recognition of a prior miracle. Their common liturgical feast is set for November 5, the anniversary of their beatification.

The sacrifice of the 38 martyrs of Albania bears witness to an unfailing fidelity to the universal Church and to the successor of Peter, lived out until the supreme gift of life. Faced with the totalitarian attempt to destroy the Christian and human identity of the Albanian people, their peaceful resistance allowed the faith to be preserved in clandestinity.

Their spiritual legacy is today the foundation of the reconstruction of the Church in Albania. They are honored as heroes of freedom of conscience and as models of Christian forgiveness, having all forgiven their executioners before dying.