Fan Noli was born in 1882 in the Albanian village of Ibrik Tepe (Albanian: Qytezë), Eastern Thrace (then part of the Ottoman Empire) as Theofanes Stylianos Mavromatis. He was an Albanian of the Eastern Orthodox faith. He came from an Orthodox Albanian community who had fled socio-political turbulence (18th century) from what is today southern Albania and resettled in Thrace in areas that had been depopulated due to previous conflicts. During his youth, Noli received his education from Greek elementary and secondary schools. As a young man, Noli wandered throughout the Mediterranean Basin, living in Athens, Greece, Alexandria, Egypt and Odessa, Russia, and supported himself as an actor and translator. As well as his native Albanian, he spoke many languages such as Greek, English, French, Turkish, and Arabic. Having been a Teacher in Athens, Noli went abroad to Egypt in 1903 and worked as a Teacher in Greek schools of Alexandria using the name Theophanis Mavromatis and did not espouse Albanian national sentiments. Later in his work as a Teacher and in Egyptian theater Noli embraced Albanian national sentiments. Through his contacts with the Albanian expatriate movement, he became an ardent supporter of his country's nationalist movement and moved to the United States in 1906. He first worked in Buffalo, New York, in a lumber mill and then moved to Boston, Massachusetts and worked as an operator on a machine which stamped labels on cans.