Dom Gjergj Simoni, who for many years suffered in the prisons of communism passed away at the age of 89. Dom Gjergj Simoni was convicted and imprisoned for agitation and propaganda as a poet during communism. Dom Gjergj Simoni is the author of many publications and shortly before he passed away he became acquainted with the state security file.

Gjergj Simoni was born on December 8, 1933 in the city of Shkodra in a family of civic origin, where their ancestors have settled there at “Arra e Madhe” for 400 years.

In the mid-1960s, Gjergj Simoni continued to work as a worker at the Vau of Deja Hydropower Plant, while his brother, Zefi, worked as an accountant at the Archdiocese of Shkodra. Although Zefi had been able to get a job as a teacher of Language and Literature in the gymnasiums of Shkodra, due to his devotion to the Catholic faith, he had left that job along with the good salary he received in Education and was employed as an accountant at the Archdiocese. But in addition to the devotion that the two Simoni brothers had to the faith of the Catholic religion, they also had another passion, literature, and both Zefi and Gjergji constantly wrote various poems and stories, but could not publish them. Among the most prominent poems that he had associated with the regime in power, were those entitled: “Letter to Lucifer” and “Breakfast in Shkodra”. In the first poem he satirized Enver Hoxha and his tyranny, while in the second he highlighted the great misery in his city.

Around 1967, when the communist regime of Enver Hoxha launched a campaign to close churches and mosques and demolish places of worship, one of the cities that felt the most was the city of Shkodra, where the center of the Catholic Clergy of Albania was concentrated. Anticipating the massive violence that was preparing to start against religion, Gjergj Simoni, thought to do something to save what he could from the most valuable books, objects, items and documents of the Archbishopric of Shkodra. 

Dom Gjergj Simoni suffered 9 years imprisonment in the camps of Ballshi, Qafë Bari and Spac, for the only fact that he wanted to preserve the facilities of valuable documents of the Archbishopric of Shkodra. His brother, Monsignor Zef Simoni, who is now the Bishop of Shkodra, also suffered many years in prison.  Gjergj Simoni himself, since 1991, when he was ordained as the first priest by the Holy See, served in the parish of Dajci on the Buna Coast, without forgetting his old passion: Literature. 

/Klara Ruci/