page_title: St. Stephen's Cathedral, Shkodër
section_title: Construction
hierarchical_section_title: St. Stephen's Cathedral, Shkodër / Structure and construction / Construction
caption_attribution_description: Photos by Adam Jones
context_page_description: Shkodër Cathedral is a cathedral in the city of Shkodër in northwestern Albania. The Roman Catholic cathedral is dedicated to Saint Stephen.
  During the Siege of Scutari the cathedral was damaged by the Montenegrin army, particularly the south east side, causing fire in the bell tower. The cathedral was closed in 1967 and reopened in 1990.
context_section_description: The land was given by mecenate Palok Krandja. Work commenced on 7 April 1858 after a major delay. There was a pompous ceremony on that day for the construction of this cathedral which would be one of the biggest Catholic cathedrals in the Balkans at that time, and many local and diplomatic personalities participated at the inauguration of the construction work. Besides giving his permission for the building through a decree, Sultan Abdülmecid I had also sent 700 Turkish liras, whereas Pope Pius IX had provided 1,000 golden scudi. The first phase of construction finished in 1867, 9 years later.
  The cathedral was 74 meters long, 50 meters wide and 23.5 meters tall. Initially the main hall had a 6,000 person capacity (with people standing up).
  There was a marathon for fund raising at that time: besides the contribution, which included even proceeds from sold jewelries, each Catholic family gave a worker to contribute to the construction for a period of at least 6 months. Gurash Shënkolli, a Shkodër citizen, is said to have been in Vienna during the time of the marriage of Franz Joseph I of Austria, and to have managed to enter the Emperor's office. Gurash asked the Emperor for financial aid for the construction of the church. Not only was Gurash given 150 napoleons, but he was also congratulated by the Austrian Emperor for his "typically Albanian" audacity in asking that way and to an Emperor for that type of money.
  During the construction, the big arch fell twice on the ground, and the fix was made through the help of an Austrian engineer, whose name is unknown to us today. As the construction work was ending, a bell tower was still missing. Archbishop Guerini gathered the representatives of the wealthiest Catholic families. It was decided that three categories, depending on the level of wealth, would provide each 20, 15 and 10 Napoleon gold. This resulted in a dispute because many people didn't want to be ranked in lower wealth categories. At that point, Gjon Nushi, one of the wealthiest people of the community, openly proposed to Filip Parruca, another wealthy man: "Let's finish the bell tower together, and on its wall we'll have a commemorative stone to remind posterity that it was our money to build it". This discussion was enough for the community to accept rather the bishop's proposal. Filip Parruca, Mark Pema and Pjetër Pema purchased in Venice the bell, and had it put on the tower.
caption: The interior of the cathedral
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