World

Macedonia honours new saint Mother Teresa

Special papal envoy archbishop held outdoor mass in Skopje's main square, close to house where Mother Teresa was born

Afp September 11, 2016

Cardinal Vinko Puljic (C), Archbishop of Sarajevo, attends celebrations in the main square in Skopje, on September 11, 2016, at the conclusion of a special day of thanksgiving for the canonization of Mother Teresa. PHOTO: AFP

SKOPJE: A week after Mother Teresa was made a saint, several hundred people gathered in the city of her birth -- the Macedonian capital Skopje -- for a ceremony and mass in her memory.

Special papal envoy archbishop Vinko Puljic held the outdoor mass in Skopje's main square, close to the house where Mother Teresa was born.

"Macedonia should be proud... of such a wonderful person," Puljic told those attending the mass, including nuns from her Missionaries of Charity order, religious dignitaries, top Macedonian officials and foreign diplomats.

Mother Teresa declared saint at Vatican ceremony

Born in 1910 to Kosovan Albanian parents in Skopje -- then part of the Ottoman empire -- Mother Teresa won the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize and was revered around the world as a beacon for the Christian values of self-sacrifice and charity.

She spent all her adult life in India, first teaching, then tending to the dying poor for decades before her death in 1997 at the age of 87.

Archbishop Puljic also blessed a chapel at Mother Teresa Memorial House, a museum dedicated to her.

Mother Teresa's canonisation mass in Rome on September 4 was attended by more than 100,000 pilgrims, including heads of state.