A well-known landmark in Woody Point is St. Patrick’s Church, now in private hands. Its inscription in the register of Canada’s Historic Places contains a most remarkable statement that the worthy Irish priest, Thomas Sears “who served the entire coastline from Bay of Islands to the Great Northern Peninsula from 1881 – 1882, was entrusted with the diocese of Oroschi in his homeland and subsequently devised the present-day Albanian alphabet” (HistoricPlaces.ca).
This is an odd claim because Father, later Monsignor, Sears served the Catholic Diocese of St. George’s from 1868 to his death in 1885. But stranger by far is the second part of this sentence.
Thomas Sears was born in Ireland but grew up in Nova Scotia, where he learned Gaelic. This was a skill that was of great value to the Gaelic-speaking people of the Codroy Valley where he was sent in 1868. Speaking Gaelic, however, would not have been much use dealing with the Albanian language, or its modern alphabet, which was adopted in 1908, some 23 years after Sears had died!
Careful research turned up a Father Primus Docci, who was indeed from Albania, and from 1877 to 1882 had assisted Sears throughout his large diocese; probably he travelled more than once to Bonne Bay. The proper spelling of his name clearly caused problems. In Albanian he was Preng or Prenk Doçi, in English generally Primus Docci, and even Prince Father Douzi (or Doutchy).
So who was this Albanian priest and how did he turn up in Newfoundland? That part of his story is revealed in the Albanian Catholic Bulletin for 1986-7. Apparently he had left Albania because of religious persecution: the northern part of the country where he lived had long been Catholic, while the rest of the country being part of the Ottoman empire was Muslim. One old resident of the Port-au-Port remembered Docci having said how he “had to jump from the third story of a building and run for his life. He was crying as he told the story of how his mother and his altar boy were left behind and that he didn’t know what had become of them.”
How he pitched up in Newfoundland is not clear, but Father Docci found the trials and dangers of rural life here so difficult that he eventually declined to volunteer for further service. According to Brosnan’s Pioneer History of St. George’s Diocese, “a lovable character in many ways, he seems to have been of a highly sensitive disposition, a trait of character by no means conducive to success in a mission like West Newfoundland.”
Just before he departed the island, he said to the parents of a new-born boy “I expect to be leaving this country shortly and would like to leave a name-sake behind me. Would you mind if I attached my name to your child?” His parents were delighted to do so, and that was how Prime Power of St. George’s acquired his unusual name.
Many years after Docci left Newfoundland, Neil McNeil, then Bishop of St. George’s was visiting Rome. He fell into conversation in Italian with another Bishop who sported a resplendent moustache – a rarity in the Vatican. Having mentioned that he was from St. George’s in western Newfoundland, the stranger astonished McNeil by asking “And how is George Garnier?” Garnier had been quite a character in Sandy Point, well remembered by Prenk Docci.
After a few years in New Brunswick, Pennsylvania and India, Father Docci returned to his homeland as Abbot of St. Alexander in Orosh in the Mirdita district of northern Albania. There he actively encouraged closer ties with Austria-Hungary, founded a literary society, wrote many articles, and was one of the promoters of the modern Albanian alphabet. He died in 1917, but not before, according to Don Downer, he became “quite famous during WWI, … for translating for the allies.”
How Docci’s later career was attributed to the Rev. Sears is puzzling. Perhaps somebody copying out a short history of the diocese of St. George’s was momentarily distracted and returning to the task at hand skipped a paragraph or two.
It has been said that “careful research is what spares people from minor errors as they sweep on to the final grand stupidity.” In this case, a minor error that should have been swept away resulted in a magnificent absurdity!
By Tony Berger
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