A Note On Shkoder

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I’ve been doing some research on the history of our Mother of Good Counsel from the perspective of ancient Albania. Here is what I got from Albanian.Com

Christianity manifested itself in Illyria during Roman rule, about the middle of the 1st century AD. At first the new religion had to compete with Oriental cults–among them that of Mithra, Persian god of light–which had entered the land in the wake of Illyria’s growing interaction with eastern regions of the empire. For a long time it also had to compete with gods worshiped by Illyrian pagans. The steady growth of the Christian community in Dyrrhachium (the Roman name for Epidamnus) led to the creation there of a bishopric in AD 58. Later, episcopal seats were established in Apollonia, Buthrotum (modern Butrint), and Scodra (modern Shkodr?). By the time the empire began to decline, the Illyrians, profiting from a long tradition of martial habits and skills, had acquired great influence in the Roman military hierarchy. Indeed, several of them went on from there to become emperors. From the mid-3rd to the mid-4th century AD the reins of the empire were almost continuously in the hands of emperors of Illyrian origin: Gaius Decius, Claudius Gothicus, Aurelian, Probus, Diocletian, and Constantine the Great.

I made Scodra bold because it figures highly in the history of Our Lady of Shkodra, that is Good Counsel.
Below are other links worth checking:

• Scanderbeg
• Albania Today
• Albanian Gospel ministry website
• Albanian HIstory
• Albanian History from Albanian.Com
• Illyria in Encyclopedia.Com
• Illyria in the WikiPedia
• Illyria in the Catholic Encyclopedia

For more about the Shkodra-Genazzano connection, read this article.