TIRANA, Albania: A bronze statue of Mother Teresa was unveiled at the international airport in Tirana that already carries her name Thursday as part of ceremonies to mark the 10th anniversary of her death
The ceremony was part of ten days of commemorations to the Roman Catholic nun, an ethnic Albanian who has long been revered in this mostly Muslim country.
The 6-meter (yard) high statue "symbolized her great monument to humanity she built with her extraordinary devotion, love and strength of her trust in God," Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha said at the ceremony.
He was joined at the ceremony by political leaders and senior representatives of the country's Muslim, Catholic and Orthodox communities.
The airport, the capital's main hospital and a square are already named in her honor. Smaller statues stand at the Albania's National Museum and in front of the main Tirana University building.
Mother Teresa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2003, putting her on the road to possible sainthood for her life's work building shelters, orphanages and clinics around the world to care for the downtrodden.
Born in neighboring Macedonia as Agnes Gonxhe Bojaxhiu to an ethnic Albanian family, she went to Calcutta, India, in 1929, and dedicated herself to the service of the poor and infirm.
She died on Sept. 5, 1997 at age 87.
She first visited Albania in 1989, when the communists were still in power. Albanians were barred from practicing religion from 1967 until 1990, when communism ended.
Albania, predominantly Muslim with large Orthodox Christian and Roman Catholic minorities, is officially a secular nation, and relations between religious communities are generally good.
