By Risto Karajkov — Osservatorio sui Balcani

Mother Theresa, one of the icons of the XXth century, was born in Skopje. Her place of birth commemorates her with a special award for humanitarian engagement and a Monumental House in the centre of the capital of Macedonia “There is hunger for ordinary bread, and there is hunger for love, for kindness, for thoughtfulness; and this is the great poverty that makes people suffer so much.” – Mother Theresa

Today her closest company is young Skopje skaters. They like the smooth marble and the many curbs and sharp edges around her small square. Skater blogs on the web indicate that the best skating ground in Skopje is next to Mother Theresa.

She wouldn’t mind this company, many would agree. Amid a siege of Beirut in 1982 she negotiated a ceasefire between the Israeli army and the Palestinian guerillas to save some other young skaters. Children have been trapped in a hospital near the front line. Mother Theresa made the war stop and lead the Red Cross to take the children to safety.

By awarding the Mother Theresa award to several deserving humanitarians last week, Skopje quietly paid its respects to its easily greatest native.

She was born here, in the Vlach neighborhood on 26 August 1910, in what was then the Ottoman Empire. There is confusion concerning the exact date of her birthday. According to some sources it was a day later, on August 27. That was however the date of her baptism in the Jesus Heart Church. It was this day she considered as the beginning of her Christian life.

The church, which is no more, was right where Mother Theresa’s monument is now. Half -way between the Stone Bridge and the Old Train Station, in the center of town. She went there with her school friends and sang in the church choir. The church was destroyed in the 1963 earthquake. As those were communist times, authorities were not eager to restore it.

On this very spot the government is now building the Mother Theresa Memorial House. Foundations were put in May and the memorial should be completed by the end of the year. It will comprise a monument, exhibition, an open gate, and a shrine. A local architect, Vangel Bozinovski, won the project on an international competition. The structure should combine traditional style with architectonic materials never before used in the country.

Mother Theresa lived in Skopje until she was 18, when she left to Ireland to join the Sisters of Loreto, from where she proceeded to her true home, Calcutta. In all truth, she always felt her real home were the poor.

“By blood I am Albanian, by citizenship Indian, by faith a Catholic nun, by calling I belong to the world, but my heart belongs to the heart of Jesus”, cited the words of the great missionary, Anton Sereci, a novelist, at last year’s 10th anniversary of Mother Theresa’s death commemorated in Macedonian parliament.

Mr. Sereci was one of the people who got Mother Theresa’s award this year. The price regularly goes to people with strong humanitarian engagement, or who have dedicated themselves to researching the great woman’s life.

The Saint of the Gutters, as LIFE Magazine once called her, was born as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, in a family of Albanian descent, originally from Skhoder, Albania. She was the youngest child of Nikola and Drane Bojaxhiu.

Her father died when she was eight years old after which her mother raised her as a Roman Catholic. Early in hew childhood she becomes fascinated by stories of missionary work and already at the age of 12 she decides to commit to religious life. She leaves Skopje in 1928, at the age of 18. The rest is history.

No ranking of great contemporaries can be even imagined without her name. Consistently over the years Gallup polls had found Mother Theresa to be the most admired person in the United States. A poll from 1999 conducted in the US ranked her “the most admired person in the 20th century”.

“She is the United Nations. She is peace in the world.” said once of Mother Theresa former UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar.

Mother Theresa returned to her native Skopje several times over the years; in 1970, 1978, 1980, and 1986.

In 1980, a year after she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the City of Skopje declared her an honorary citizen.

In her unselfish giving she also gave something to her place of birth. And it is a lot. It is the right to associate itself with this contemporary saint.

When celebrated conductor and great humanitarian, Zubin Mehta visited the country last summer for the Ohrid summer festival, Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski gave him a small statue of Mother Theresa. Skopje should be proud of being able to claim even a little bit of Mother Theresa’s greatness.

The recent book “Mother Theresa of Skopje” by Stojan Trencevski, a dedicated researcher of the great woman’s life and president of the association with the same name, explores the life of the Bojaxhiu family in Skopje over generations and sheds light on her childhood years. The book stresses the emotional connection Mother Theresa kept with her native town over the years.

“If there had not been for Skopje, there would not have been me. There would not have been Mother Theresa.”

Whether Mother Theresa had actually ever said those words, or they are just a product of skillful narration, Skopje should be proud. It gets a chance to show that greatness and love can grow everywhere.