In the spring of 2009, freshly graduated from college, I found myself on a combined pilgrimage and backpacking trip in Albania. I always had an intense intellectual curiosity about modern Albania and its special place in European history, its confluence of competing cultures and religions, its unique language, its ancient Christian history, the bizarre stories relayed from its oppressive twentieth-century regime, and most importantly, the impact of Albanian-American Orthodox clergy and leaders on my own spiritual formation as a young adult.