The Diaspora as a Bridge between the Vatican and Albania: The Role of the Arbëresh Colleges in Preserving Albanian National and Religious Identity (17th–19th Centuries)

By Dorian RRAPI

Abstract
The purpose of this article is to examine the role of the Arbëresh diaspora as an institutional and cultural bridge between the Vatican and Albanian society from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. It explores how the Arbëresh religious colleges established in southern Italy functioned not merely as centers of theological education, but as structured mechanisms for preserving Albanian national and religious identity during the period of Ottoman rule, when cultural and educational institutions in the homeland were severely constrained. The study adopts a historical institutional and interdisciplinary approach, drawing on church history, diaspora studies, and Albanian national historiography. It analyzes ecclesiastical reports submitted to the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, early Albanian language publications produced within Arbëresh colleges, and biographical material related to clergy and intellectuals educated in these institutions, alongside established secondary scholarship. These sources are interpreted through the analytical lenses of diaspora mediation, institutionalized identity preservation, and religious cultural diplomacy. The analysis demonstrates that the Arbëresh colleges operated as identity producing institutions that closely interconnected religious formation with linguistic preservation, historical consciousness, and early forms of national ideology. Through these colleges, the Arbëresh diaspora generated a transnational elite that acted as a stable intermediary between the Vatican and Albanian society, transforming religious education into a vehicle of cultural diplomacy and laying the intellectual and cultural foundations of the Albanian National Awakening. By conceptualizing the Arbëresh diaspora as an organized institutional mediator rather than a symbolic or purely cultural community, this article offers an original contribution to broader debates on diaspora-led nation-building and the role of religious institutions in the formation of modern national identities, while situating the Albanian case within a wider European and comparative perspective.

Keywords: Arbëresh diaspora; Vatican; Albanian identity; religious colleges;nationalism

https://doi.org/10.58944/ezty3239