Religion in Albania

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The 18th century Et'hem Bey Mosque in Tirana

One of the religions in Albania with the most followers is Islam , the largest minority is Christianity . Besides the Sunnis , who are in the majority, there is the Sufi order of the Bektashi . There are Orthodox and Catholics among Christians .

background

The Party of Labor of Albania declared Albania an atheist state from 1967 to 1990 and banned all religious practice. As before, the majority of Albanians have not made an official declaration. But you remember whether your own family comes from the Muslim, Orthodox or Catholic tradition. The practice of religion is very rare among Albanians.

Representatives of the Muslims, Orthodox, Bektashi and Catholics of Albania in Paris at the rally in honor of the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack in January 2015
A mosque next to an Orthodox church in southern Albania

According to Nathalie Clayer , a Southeast European researcher , the history of Albania has no religious extremism . Religious tolerance determines the everyday life of the Albanians, who are proud of the harmony that exists between the followers of the religions. Religious pragmatism as a characteristic trait of Albanian society has led to numerous interfaith marriages over the centuries. A strong unifying cultural identity emerged. Historically, it is also due to the need to protect one's own culture from attempts to conquer and subjugate other peoples and countries. A quote from Pashko Vasa (1825–1892), which was later adopted by the totalitarian communist regime , can still be heard today :

"Mos shikoni kisha e xhamia / Feja e shqyptarit âsht shqyptaria."

“Does not differentiate between church and mosque. The Albanian religion is Albanism. "

- Pashko Vasa

Across the country and in all religions, superstition and pagan customs are widespread as part of the common Albanian culture. Amulets such as garlic , dolls and stuffed animals, flags and painted eyes that are supposed to avert the evil eye ( Albanian  Syri i keq ) are omnipresent. Especially in the northern mountain regions of the Albanian Alps , pre-Christian and Catholic customs mixed.

Pilgrimage sites such as the Catholic monastery near Laç , which is dedicated to Saint Anthony of Padua , are visited by followers of all religions. Holidays are also often celebrated together. Here pagan elements, with which Christian saints were enriched, play a unifying role across religions, as pagan beliefs, myths and superstitions are still widespread today.

Religious composition

Religious majority by municipality (2011 census)
  • Sunni majority
  • Majority does not belong to any traditional religion / no answer
  • Catholic majority
  • orthodox majority
  • Bektashi majority

    • 2011 census

    The 2011 census identified the following religions:

    Religion in Albania
    religion Residents proportion of
    Islam
    Muslims
    Bektashi     		1,646,236
    1,587,608
    58,628     		58.79%
    56.70%
    2.09%
    Christians
    Catholic
    Orthodox
    Protestant / Evangelical
    other Christians     		475,629
    280,921
    188,992
    3,797
    1,919     		16.99%
    10.03%
    6.75%
    0.14%
    0.07%
    atheism 69.995 2.50%
    No answer given 386.024 13.79%
    Believers without denomination 153,630 5.49%
    not relevant / not stated 68.022 2.43%

    The results of this 2011 census are controversial. The Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania officially announced that it would not recognize the census results. From her point of view, the Orthodox Christians in particular are underrepresented, which she attributes to errors in conducting personal surveys and deliberate boycott of the relevant questions. According to our own surveys, based on baptismal and parish registers, the proportion of Orthodox Christians in Albania exceeds 24%.

    Further investigations

    Further studies from the last few years give very different numbers. According to surveys by the Albanian Academy of Sciences in 2003, around 40% of Albanians belonged to the Sunnis , 20% to the Bektashi order , another 20% to the Orthodox Church and about 10% to the Catholic Church . The remaining 10% described themselves as atheists or belong to other religions and denominations, in particular Protestant or Evangelical free churches. A study by the Albanian national statistical office Instituti i Statistics from 2005 found a proportion of 79.9% Muslims in the total population of Albania. Estimates by the Swiss Metadatabase of Religious Affiliation (SMRE) published in 2018 assume 8% Catholics, 15% Orthodox, 65.9% Muslims and 10.9% people without religious affiliation for the period 2000 (1996-2005), for the period 2010 (2006–2015) the SMRE estimates 8.7% Catholics, 9.1% Orthodox, 52.5% Muslims and 29.5% people without religious affiliation.

    The Jewish religious community has about a hundred members, although there have been Jews in Albania for 2000 years . A synagogue was opened in Tirana in 2010 , but soon closed again. Almost all of the remaining Jews of the never-large community emigrated to Israel after the collapse of communist rule .

    In 2008 there were 1757 places of worship and places of worship in Albania. Although Muslims form the relative and absolute majority, they have fewer houses of faith. There were only 568 mosques and 70 tekken , but 1119 churches . Of the churches, 694 were Catholic and 425 were Orthodox.

    Previous surveys

    Before the Second World War , around 70% of the population professed Sunni Islam. 20% were Orthodox Christians, including practically all members of the ethnic minorities ( Macedonians , Aromanians , Greeks and Roma ). About 10% belonged to the Roman Catholic Church. Orthodox Albanians lived mainly in the south, Catholics in the northwest, and Muslims were represented everywhere, apart from a few mountain regions.

    Legal status

    The Albanian Constitution of 1998 determines in the introduction and in detail in Articles 10 and 24 the right to religious freedom and equal treatment of all religions by the state, which also recognizes their legal status. He describes himself as secular . Warm relationships between the various religious faiths have contributed to a generally positive atmosphere in this country. There is no explicit state religion in Albania, all religions are the same in the eyes of the state authorities. The state's neutrality in matters of religion goes so far that there are no religious lessons in public schools.

    Religious groups do not need to register, and the predominant religions (Christian Orthodox, Catholics, Sunni Muslims and the Bektashi community) enjoy many official privileges.

    history

    Antiquity

    The mythology and religion of the Illyrians (the supposed ancestors of the Albanians) are only passed down through the mention of Illyrian deities on monuments dating from the time of the Roman Empire . There doesn't seem to have been a main god. There are also differences between the individual tribes. According to the British writer John Wilkes , the Illyrians did not develop a uniform cosmology on which to focus their religious practices.

    The Christianity spread (then largely made up on the territory of Albania Epirus nova and part of southern Illyricum ) as in the entire Roman Empire from the urban centers. The steady growth of the Christian community in Dyrrhachium (the Roman name for Epidamnos , now Durrës ) led to the development of a local bishopric in AD 58. Later episcopal seats were established in Apollonia , Buthrotum and Scodra .

    Late antiquity and the Middle Ages

    From the first and second centuries AD, Christianity was the predominant religion in the region, supplanting pagan polytheism and largely inheriting the humanistic worldview and institutions of the Greeks and Romans. In the late 5th or 6th century, the very large Monastery of the Forty Martyrs , an important pilgrimage site , was built near Saranda . Although the Albanian area belonged to Byzantium , the Christians remained under the jurisdiction of the Roman Pope until 732, when the Byzantine Emperor Leon the Isaurians - annoyed by the local clergy who had supported Rome in the Byzantine iconoclasm by the majority - separated the provincial church from the Pope and subordinated to the Patriarch of Constantinople . After the church split in 1054, the southern part of Albania remained under Constantinople's sphere of influence , while the north returned to papal jurisdiction. The schism was the first significant religious division in this region.

    Islam first found its way into what is now Albania in the 9th century.

    Ottoman era

    When the Albanian-speaking area was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire around the 15th century , the Islamization of the region gradually began. At first, Turkish immigrants settled here - mainly merchants, craftsmen and soldiers and later Tımariots . Islamization was accompanied by the phenomenon of so-called crypto Christianity .

    In the Ottoman Empire, identity was established solely on the basis of religious belief. That is why religious questions were important in the burgeoning national and cultural creeds even after the Ottomans left. The Muslim population was particularly strong in eastern Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia . Sunni Muslims traditionally lived in the cities of Albania, while Bektashites were mostly common in remote areas. Orthodox Christians were mainly concentrated in the south, Catholics in the north of the country. However, this regional distribution no longer fully applies today.

    Communist regime

    Base of the destroyed minaret of the Meçite mosque in Gjirokastra

    The Agrarian Reform Act of 1945 seized church owners, Decree No. 743 (on religion) provided for the establishment of a national church and forbade religious dignitaries to have relations with foreign powers. Based on the Chinese Cultural Revolution of Mao , the dictator Enver Hoxha declared Albania the first and only atheist state in the world on February 6, 1967. All religious activity or symbolism was banned, churches and mosques were destroyed or otherwise used, city and place names of religious origin were changed as well as personal names.

    For almost 50 years the state used all possible means against religious ideas and institutions. During the fasting period before Easter and the fasting month of Ramadan , many forbidden foods such as dairy products and pork were distributed in schools and factories. The consumption of alcohol was encouraged. The “Dictionary of Popular Names” published in 1982 contained the 3,000 permitted secular names.

    Until 1990 communism was the "religion" of the Albanians. It was so closely linked with Albanism that even nationalist ideas lost their luster with the overthrow of communist rule. Communist ideology had portrayed the Albanian people as the chosen people who were called to be models and helpers for the worldwide, oppressed proletariat. For Albanians born under communist rule, this meant being communists first. There was no other identity beyond communism. All other forms of life were negated and made ideologically paralyzed. Every contact with the outside world, including that with Albanians abroad, was controlled. The already existing distrust was reinforced by this disappointment with the communist propaganda. Thus, among the Albanians, the sense of material realities and the collective “allergy” to ideologies was strengthened.

    Beliefs

    Sunnis

    According to the 2011 census, 56.7 percent of the population of Albania are Muslim , the Bektaschi were not included.

    One of the major consequences of nearly five centuries of Ottoman rule was that the majority of Albanians embraced Sunni Islam . That is why the Albanian state emerged nominally as a majority Muslim after independence in November 1912.

    In the north, Islam spread slowly due to resistance from the Roman Catholic Church, and the mountainous terrain also hampered Ottoman influence. Catholicism was less strong in central and southern Albania, and by the late 17th century the region had largely adopted the religion of the growing Albanian Muslim elite . The existence of an Albanian Muslim class of pashas and beys , who played an increasingly important role in the political and economic life of the Ottomans, became an attractive career option for most Albanians.

    In the 20th century, following disputes with the Catholic and Orthodox clergy , the Muslim clergy was weakened first in the years of the monarchy and later completely eliminated during the 1940s and 1950s as a result of the communist policy of wiping out all organized religion on Albanian territory. The proclamation of Albania as an “atheist state” in 1967 led to the execution of numerous imams , sheikhs , hodjas , dervishes , mollas and the persecution of the Muslim ulema .

    After the end of the communist dictatorship, Albania became a full member of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in December 1992 . In April 2011, was in the capital Tirana , the Bedër University , Albania opens first Islamic university.

    Bektashi and other Sufi orders

    In the 2011 census, 2.09 percent of the population identified themselves as Bektashi . The Muslims of Albania were divided into two main communities during the Ottoman period: One professed Sunni Islam, the other were Bektashi, a mystical dervish order of Sufism . After the Bektaschi in Turkey were banned in 1925 by the founder of the state Mustafa Kemal Ataturk , the order moved its headquarters to Tirana . The Albanian government later recognized the Bektashi as a religious community independent of Sunniism. It is estimated that Sunni Muslims made up about 50% of the country's population before 1939 and the Bektashi made up an additional 20%.

    After the Bektaschi were banned by the communist Hoxha regime in 1967, most of the historic dervish monasteries ( Tekke ) were also destroyed, and the order had to move its headquarters from Tirana to Detroit in the United States . In 1954, Baba Rexheb founded the first Tekke in the USA there. In 1990 the order reopened its world center in Tirana.

    Other Sufi orders such as the Mevlevi and Halveti are hardly or not at all present today, especially because of the religious ban in the communist period.

    Orthodox

    St. Mary's Church in Leusa, Përmet , 17th century

    From the 2nd century AD, Greek dominated the services, schools and activities of the Orthodox Church in Albania . Those Albanian Orthodox who, following the fashion of nationalism in the Balkans in the 19th century, wanted to establish their church as Albanian outside the Greek, were often excommunicated by the Greek-speaking authorities. After losing its ecumenical status with the establishment of the Bulgarian Exarchate in 1870, the Greek Church wanted to avoid further schisms. The rivalry between Greece and Orthodox Albanians who campaigned for cultural separation was so strong that many Albanians such as Papa Kristo Negovani, a priest educated in Greek schools, Sotir Ollani, Petro Nini Luarasi and Nuci Naco were murdered for their patriotic orientation.

    The Orthodox Church achieved its independence from the Greek or Serbian patriarchate in the 1920s and attaches great importance to the fact that its churches are Byzantine and not Greek. The explicit distancing from the Greek Church indicates how difficult relations between these two neighboring countries still are. There are minority problems on both sides.

    Fan Noli founded the Albanian Orthodox Mission under an American diocese. Although Orthodox Christianity had existed in Albania since the 2nd century AD and the Orthodox then made up 20% of the population of Albania, the first Orthodox liturgy in Albanian was not celebrated in Albania but in Massachusetts. Later, when the Orthodox Church was officially banned in Communist Albania (1960–1989), she survived in exile in Boston .

    Between 1890 and 1920 about 25,000 Albanians, the majority of them Orthodox Christians, emigrated from southeastern Albania to the United States. Many settled in and around Boston. Like many other Orthodox immigrants, they were predominantly young male farmers who were incapable of reading. Like so many other Balkan immigrants, almost 10,000 of them returned to their homeland after the First World War. Fan Noli set up the Albanian Orthodox Mission under the American diocese.

    When a Greek priest in 1906 by an independent parish in Hudson (Massachusetts) refused to bury an Albanian nationalists claimed an enraged Albanian community missionary diocese to assist them in establishing a separate Albanian-language parish within the missionary diocese. Fan Noli , an Albanian politician and former parish cantor , was subsequently ordained in February 1908 by a compassionate Archbishop Plato in order to be able to serve this new Albanian parish. Noli helped establish five other Albanian parishes, most of them in Massachusetts, as the Albanian Orthodox Mission in America under the auspices of the American Diocese. Noli later emigrated to Albania, was ordained bishop and in 1923 Primate of the independent Orthodox Church in Albania. He even held the office of Prime Minister of Albania for a short time, but was overthrown by Ahmet Zogu in a coup in the same year . After years in exile in Germany, Noli returned to the United States in 1932, studied at Harvard, translated Shakespeare into Albanian and Orthodox Bibles and sermons into English, and headed the Albanian Orthodox community in the United States until his death in 1965.

    Catholics

    Jesuit Church in Tirana

    Current list of dioceses according to ecclesiastical province

    For four centuries the Catholic Albanians, supported by Franciscan missionaries, carried out uprisings for their faith, until the missionary work of the Catholic Albanians by the Ottoman rulers began in the middle of the 17th century and with the conversion of numerous villages, especially those with an Orthodox population, to the Islam ended. The Collegium Urbanum in Rome played a significant role in providing religious and moral support to Albanian Catholics. During the 17th and 18th centuries, numerous clergymen who were appointed to serve in the Albanian mission were trained here. Financial support for the Albanian Catholic Church came from the Austrian government, which held the cultural protectorate for the Christian communities under Ottoman rule. A seminary founded by Archbishop Topich von Shkodra in 1858 was destroyed by the Ottomans, but later rebuilt on Austrian territory and placed under imperial protection. The church legislation of the Albanians was by Clement XI. reformed. In 1872 Pius IX called a second national synod after Shkodra to revive church life. Supported by Austria's interest in Albania, the presence of Catholic bishops in Albania was permitted by a civil decree of the Vilâyet von Berat .

    A small group of Orthodox who converted to the Catholic Church in 1895 resurrected the Albanian Greek Catholic Church .

    The Catholic nun and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize Mother Teresa , although born in what is now North Macedonia , is celebrated as an ethnic Albanian throughout Albania like a national heroine. October 18, Mother Teresa's beatification day , is celebrated as a national holiday on which authorities and schools are closed. The government donated a Mother Teresa order. In 2003, Tirana Airport was named after Mother Teresa on the occasion of her beatification. She was canonized in 2016.

    Thirty-eight martyrs persecuted by the communist regime will be beatified in November 2016.

    Legal holidays

    Christmas decoration in Shkodra

    The following religious festivals were public holidays in 2010:

    literature

    • Shpresa Musaj: Albania's Religiosity: Constant Through the Ages . Interchurch and interreligious tolerance in the Balkans. In: Scientific articles from the Tectum Verlag, History Science series . tape 18 . Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8288-2693-9 .
    • De la Rocca: Religion and Nation in Albania . Rome 1989
    • Religion and Culture in Albanian-Speaking Southeast Europe . In: Oliver Jens Schmitt (Ed.): Pro Oriente (series of publications by the Commission for Southeast European History) . tape 4 . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-631-60295-9 .
    • Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, Bernd Jürgen Fischer: Albanian identities: myth and history . 2002, Indiana University Press, Chapter 9 (Fatos Lubonja), ISBN 0-253-34189-2 .
    • Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, Religion and Nation in Albania , East-West European Perspectives, issue 4/2010
    • Markus A. Weingardt, Hans Küng, Dieter Senghaas: Religion, power, peace: the peace potential of religions in violent political conflicts . W. Kohlhammer, 2007, ISBN 3-17-019881-5 .

    Web links

    Commons : Religion in Albania  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

    Individual evidence

    1. ↑ a b Nathalie Clayer: The Religious Communities in Albania . In: Peter Jordan, Karl Kaser, Walter Lukan, Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, Holm Sundhaussen (eds.): Österreichische Osthefte . Volume 45, issue 1/2. Peter Lang, 2003, ISSN  0029-9375 .
    2. ↑ Albanian religious leaders celebrate religious harmony. In: Religions for Peace . European Council of Religious Leaders , archived from the original on May 22, 2011 ; Retrieved November 8, 2009 .
    3. ^ Fostering Religious Harmony in Albania. (PDF; 1.3 MB) USAID , June 30, 2007, accessed November 8, 2009 .
    4. ↑ a b Shpresa Musaj: Albania's Religiosity: Constant in the Change of Times . Interchurch and interreligious tolerance in the Balkans. In: Scientific articles from the Tectum Verlag, History Science series . tape 18 . Tectum Verlag, Marburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8288-2693-9 .
    5. ^ Robert Elsie: A Dictionary of Albanian Religion, Mythology, and Folk Culture . C. Hurst & Co., London 2001, ISBN 1-85065-570-7 , pp. 125 .
    6. ↑ Helmut Eberhart: "... And in eternity Amen". The Dukagjin Highlands as a Catholic enclave . In: Helmut Eberhart, Karl Kaser (Ed.): Albania - Tribal life between tradition and modernity . Böhlau Verlag, Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-205-98378-5 .
    7. ↑ Bevis Fusha: Pilgrims in Shna Ndo. Accessed December 22, 2015 .
    8. ↑ Fjala e Drejtorit të Përgjithshëm të INSTAT, Ines Nurja gjatë prezantimit të rezultateve kryesore të Censusit të Popullsisë dhe Banesave 2011. (PDF) Archived from the original on March 26, 2017 (Albanian, Ines Nurja, director general of the INSTAT results 2011).;
    9. ↑ Official declaration. (No longer available online.) In: orthodoxalbania.org. Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania , December 17, 2012, archived from the original on July 14, 2014 ; accessed on June 21, 2018 (English).
    10. ↑ Arqile Berxholi, Dhimiter Doka: Population Geographic Atlas of Albania. Atlas of Albania . Ed .: Hartmut Asche. Shtypshkronja Ilar, Tirana 2003, ISBN 99927-907-6-8 . , see. University of Potsdam: Population-Geographic Atlas of Albania
    11. ↑ INSTAT, UNICEF (ed.): Monitoring the Situation of Children and Women - Albania - Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2005, Finale Report . Tirana February 2008, p. 49 ( study on childinfo.org (ZIP; 1.1 MB) ).
    12. ↑ Dataset Comparison - Albania in Period 1996 - 2005. In: www.smre-data.ch. Swiss Metadatabase of Religious Affiliation in Europe (SMRE), accessed on May 31, 2018 .
    13. ↑ Dataset Comparison - Albania in Period 2006 - 2015. In: www.smre-data.ch. Swiss Metadatabase of Religious Affiliation in Europe, accessed on May 31, 2018 .
    14. ^ 1st chief rabbi inaugurated in Albania. In: ynetnews.com. December 17, 2010, accessed December 28, 2010 .
    15. ↑ Harvey Sarner: Rescue in Albania - One Hundred Percent of Jews in Albania Rescued from Holocaust . Brunswick Press, Cathedral City 1997, ISBN 1-888521-11-2 .
    16. ^ Në Shqipëri P. ka 1119 kisha dhe 638 xhami. In: ateistët. August 18, 2008, archived from the original on November 18, 2015 ; Retrieved December 2, 2014 (Albanian).
    17. ↑ Wilkes 1995, p. 245: "… Illyrian deities are named on monuments of the Roman era, some in equation with gods of the classical pantheon (see figure 34)."
    18. ↑ Wilkes 1995, p. 244: "Unlike Celts, Dacians, Thracians or Scythians, there is no indication that Illyrians developed a uniform cosmology on which their religious practice was centered. An etymology of the Illyrian name linked with serpent would, if it is true, fit with the many representations of ... "
    19. ↑ Olsi Jazexhi: Yearbook of Muslims in Europe . Ed .: Jørgen Nielsen, Samim Akgönül, Ahmet Alibašić , Egdunas Racius. tape 5 . Brill, Leiden, Boston 2013, Albania, pp. 23 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed March 12, 2016]).
    20. ^ Genc Myftiu: Religious Creeds . In: Genc Myftiu (ed.): Guide of Albanian History and Cultural Heritage . Sustainable Economic Development Agency, Tirana 2000, p. 57-77 .
    21. ↑ Engelbert Deusch: The k. (u.) k. Cultural protectorate in the Albanian settlement area in its cultural, political and economic environment . Böhlau, Vienna 2009, ISBN 978-3-205-78150-9 .