The honoring of the 110th anniversary of the birth of Mother Teresa was hijacked for a vulgar display of Albanian nationalism today. Activists waving the Albanian flag and wearing Albanian traditional dresses attended the event in front of the memorial home of the Catholic saint, which included Speaker Talat Xhaferi, who also made sure to point out a number of times that Mother Teresa was Albanian.

Born to a ethnically mixed Catholic family in Skopje as Agnes Bojadziu, Mother Teresa left Macedonia as a young girl after experiencing visions, including one at the site of the memorial home, which was also draped with Albanian flags. Although overwhelmingly Muslim, Albanians in Macedonia and the region have declared Mother Teresa a symbol of national pride and have tried to point out to the importance of her ethnicity in the past, but the events today were so far over the top that they drew bemused looks from passer-bys.