This is the Memorial House of Mother Teresa and it’s in Skopje because this is where she was born in 1910, when the city was still part of the Ottoman Empire. She was born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu and spent her early life here before leaving as a young woman to join the Sisters of Loreto. The memorial stands close to the site of the church where she was baptised, linking it to her childhood and religious beginnings. The church fell down in the 1963 earthquake but it has since been replaced by a more modern building, on which more in a later post.
As for the design of this building, it was meant to represent a typical residential house, although it all looks to me a little out of place. There’s an odd circular staircase to get to the museum and I’m entirely sure why that couldn’t have been on the ground floor, although they’ve made the gift shop the priority and I suspect that’s the actual reason.
This is the small museum which is free of charge to enter and which is meant to commemorate Mother Teresa’s life.
Other than for copies of numerous documents (they were marked as copies to be fair, but it would have been nice to have a few original documents from somewhere), I can’t note that there’s a great deal actually here. I understand that her finger was sent by the Pope to reside in the chapel here, although that’s not entirely what I wanted from a museum.
A photo of the young Mother Teresa from 1926.
And a handy biography of Mother Teresa, but I’m not sure that I learned a great deal about her work from this museum set-up. I’m also a little unsure of the whole Mother Teresa story as I have a great deal of sympathy towards the late Christopher Hitchens and he effectively labelled her as something of a fraud. It appears that as often things are much more complex than that, but she did appear to believe in redemptive suffering which isn’t perhaps entirely ideal when operating hospices and hospitals.
Anyway, it was an interesting way to spend a few minutes and it’s well reviewed with a large number of people suggesting that they found it inspirational, and who am I to deny religious fervous?