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Albania2010 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses
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After the brothers at headquarters considered John’s report on his visit to Albania, they assigned Leonidha Pope, Sotir Papa, and Luçi Xheka to care for the Tiranë Congregation and the work in Albania.
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Albania2010 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses
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A GOOD START—THEN A BLOW
Though the Country Committee was working hard to promote pure worship, trouble was soon to come. In 1963, Melpo Marks wrote her brother John that two of the three brothers who made up the Country Committee, Leonidha Pope and Luçi Xheka, were “away from their families” and that meetings were not being held. Later came word that Spiro Vruho was in the hospital and that Leonidha Pope and Luçi Xheka were sick, referring to Acts 8:1, 3, where Saul of Tarsus sent Christians to prison. What was happening?
Leonidha Pope, Luçi Xheka, and Sotir Ceqi worked in a factory where members of the Communist Party held talks for all the workers, promoting Communist ideals. One day during a talk about evolution, Leonidha and Luçi stood up and said: “No! Man did not come from monkeys!” The next day both were taken away from their families and sent to work as exiles in distant cities, a punishment Albanians called internim (internment). Luçi was sent to the mountains of Gramsh. Because they considered Leonidha to be “in charge,” he was sent to the rugged, cold mountains of Burrel. It would be seven years before he returned to his home in Tiranë.
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