Mother Teresa's Remains Fought Over By India, Albania

India and Albania have engaged in a row over where Mother Teresa's remains should be buried. India rejected Albania's demands that her remains be sent to Albania, BBC reports.

"Mother Teresa was an Indian citizen and she is resting in her own country, her own land," Foreign Ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash said.

A spokeswoman for the nun's Missionaries of Charity described the Albanian request as "absurd".

Mother Teresa was an ethnic Albanian, was born in Skopje, which is now part of Macedonia, and spent much of life working for the poor in Calcutta.

The Nobel laureate, who died on September 5, 1997, was buried at the Calcutta headquarters of her Missionaries of Charity order, reports the Times of India.

Next August will be the 100th anniversary of her birth, and Albania is expected to intensify its efforts to reclaim her remains before the anniversary.

Get HuffPost World On Facebook and Twitter!

Comments

[Pem3]

This is something we all should aspire to, Two nations fighting over our long dead remains. I mean most of us just get to sit in the ground with weeds growing over us, or up on some relatives shelf in an urn. Maybe they could do a time share plan?

[xAnotherReaderx]

Skopje has always been a part of Macedonia. I don't understand the "now part of" section of this post. If Mother Teresa was born in Macedonia, then she is Macedonian, not Albanian. Albania has no claim to her. If someone was born and raised in another country, why does Albania think they have a case? Her parents obviously left that country for a reason.
She devoted her life to helping the "untouchables" in India and called it her home. Therefore, her remains should remain there.

[KIVPossum]

Why don't they sell pieces of her as 'relics' and use the money to pay for all the pedophile priests?

[foxisms]

Well, evidently Mother Teresa didn't make much of an impact on the civility of these folks!

[Artos]

Where is Solomon when you need him. Why don't they just split the remains fifty/ fifty and that way each of them can have a piece of her. Apparently neither will be happy if they can't start a war over something.

[Tenjikuronin]

I doubt an actual war will happen. Neither Albania nor Macedonia have the power to take on India....

[Bitsko]

Why not compromise and send the ashes to Ireland, where the good sister ran an order that systematically exploited and abused young women for decades? I'm sure they would know what to do with the ashes.

[SuperV]

She was buried with her order, which any catholic clergy would wish. I don't see where this needs to rise to the level of an international incident....

[SonofLiberty1]

It's only a big deal to Non Catholics

[GRobit625]

It's not a big deal to this Protestant......Why do you even come on this site SonofLiberty1? Don't you realize that a large percentage people on here are notoriously against the RCC? Not that I blame them. You continue to fight a losing battle here. If your faith in that church is that strong, you would just pray for us all and don't bother with coming on here trying to fight a losing battle.

[Caramba]

INDIA must secure and guard 24 hours her REMAINS.

ALBANIA a communist and muslim country now wants to exploit and money out of her popularity and sainthood. WHY they would NOT built an honorable monument at her honor and proclaim the world apologizing for the past mistakes and persecution!!!

ALBANIA has right to speak out NOW!

FOR RECORD Mother Teresa remains and belongs in perpetuity for INDIA AND ALL INDIANS!!!

[truthFORauthorityNOTaft]

Please reign in your rabid nationalism and listen to facts. Albania is a democratic country with a party in power that is very conveniently called "the democratic party". If you call them communist then you must also think all of Europe is a communist block.

Secondly, Albania is a secular country with a complete separation of church and state. Most Americans and Europeans LIKE to call Albania a muslim country because they can point to a country and say "See we CAN be friends with a moderate muslims". But Albania is a largely atheist nation. Churches and mosques hold zero power and are rather shunned by the population. It was under the ottoman empire for 500 years and then it is now erroneously considered muslim. Most importantly though, what does religion or form of government matter in this issue. If anything there are more muslims in India [by the hundreds of millions] then in Albania - a nation of 3 million people.

Mother Teresa left Albania in her 20s by choice and not under duress. I would say she spent her formative years in Albania and naturally that must have been crucial to her character. Albania HAS erected monuments, named it's main boulevard [akin to the Washington memorial] in her name etc. She was not "persecuted".

However requesting to exhume her body is indeed a ridiculous request. It was her choice where to die and to rest, so Albania's government should stop this greed for "tourist money".

[fcsakes]

Mother Theresa might view this as an enormous waste of time and resources that could be used for the poor.

[Sourabh Gupta]

on the contrary, I think she would have enjoyed all the attention she is getting.

[BetteB]

What animated Mother Teresa was a highly organized, high quality, Individuated Unit Of Consciousness (IOUC) that upon her death here left the physical, the body, the meat puppet if you will. What survives is consciousness which is built up in quality (organization of new information with current knowledge into more useful knowledge) throughout each life experience. At death all of the evolution of consciousness Mother Teresa's choices/ac­tions/beha­viors allowed was saved in the nonphysical digital information system of consciousness. Her physical body has no more import to her IUOC than do her experiences here to her IUOC, her job was done here. If the IUOC that powered her comes back to this reality it will start off with a better quality of consciousness, but still has to go through the physical development from newborn on up while picking up all the belief systems that lock us into smaller realities. See www.mybigtoe.com, or www.mbtevents.com for more information, if you so chose.
Love
Bette

[sharonb01]

Very strange, but very interesting, I'll go look. Meanwhile, Albania should send money, lots and lots of money, to Mother Teresa's little sisters. She was a harsh critic of anybody who didn't do what they could to feed a baby. And Albanians should be very worried about spending money that could be spent on baby food dragging Teresa's old bones back to make a tourist attraction. Way to tick off a saint.

[mahe157]

Your headline for this leaves much to be desired. It makes one feel that India is fighting with Albania. Rather India is target of preposterous claim by Albania for remains of Mother Teressa.

If Huffington Post is giving headlines like this, then the world has a long way to go before justice and equality for all can be guaranteed.

Newspapers and media in USA have failed to be a fourth pillar of democracy and that is why we have Wall Street and businesses taking common people for a big ride. Also, they way Health Care Industry is ripping the people has not been covered or hightlighted at all by the newspapers and media.

If this state of affairs continue with the newspapers and media, there won't much hope for long time to come.

[MissKaren]

She left Albania in her early 20's to go to India and teach in a school for privileged kids. She joined the Sisters of Loretto and then traveled to Calcutta where she was appalled by the squalor. She left her order and worked in the streets for some time before getting permission to form the Missionaries of Charity. While she may have spent part of her childhood in Albania, she had long since left that country behind. It's absurd that they think they have a claim on her. Let her stay with her order.

[futate01]

Really and this is the story that finally opened your eyes to that? Get off your high horse clown.

[SColbert]

She was an Indian and did most of her work in India. That's where she died, and should be buried. No question.

[PWM]

Would you also hold that view if the vatican wanted to move her there?

[janehenry]

Yes

[BlueZoo]

Actually, that may be the best solution!

[MissKaren]

Yes, I would. It would be an outrage.

[cocl]

Great... she wasn't even allowed back into the country to say good bye to her mother, and now they want her bones! Talk about hypocrisy!

[PWM]

At least they don't pretend to be a saint.

[BlueZoo]

I do hope you aren't implying that Mother Teresa pretended to be a saint!

[PlaceboStudman]

If she was an Indian citizen, then she should be buried in India. She's already buried, I dont think she'd be happy having her remains exumed

[PWM]

She is unaware of her remains.

[SonofLiberty1]

You mean you are unaware of her awareness.....

[Tenjikuronin]

Why exactly does Albania want to exhume a body (read 'carcass') that has been decaying for 12 years?....

[PWM]

Money. They know the vatican will make her a saint even if she was a mass murderer and they want in on the money.

[JGatsby]

How do you see her as a mass murderer? That's not a facetious question, I would really like to know. I agree with you that she isn't the great force for good so many people think she is. Christopher Hitchens' book The Missionary Position did a great job of exposing how her work for the poor really propped up the values and interests of the elites.

[SonofLiberty1]

One, many Saints bodies do not decay believe it or not.
Two, Catholic Churches have a "Holy Relic" buried in the altar or under the altar.
Three, She is already beautified meaning that she is only a step away from. being recognized as a
Saint.

[PWM]

All bodies decay. The Catholic Church is famous for creating fake death masks. Padra Pio is an example. His mask was made in london.

[Tenjikuronin]

When I visited Goa (another state in India with a large Catholic population) years ago, I saw the body of St. Francis Xavier in an open box/casket thing. It hadn't decayed, but the tour guide told us that they had used some VERY strong embalming/­preservati­on fluids on the body years ago that had left the body well preserved.

To my knowledge, the same wasn't done to Mother Teresa....which would mean that her body is probably decayed beyond recognition by now. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong...