Religion and Society in Present-Day Albania

Antonia Young

Institute for European Studies

Working Paper no. 97.3

April, 1997

ABSTRACT

Albania is the only European country with a majority Muslim population (with the possible exception of Bosnia). It is also exceptional for its tolerance and intermingling between religions, epitomized by Albania's national hero Skanderbeg who was born an Orthodox, lived as a Muslim and died a Catholic. This century has seen the most extreme demands on Albania's people of faith during a 23-year period of state proclaimed atheism. This was followed after l99l, by a widespread revival of all religions apparently in similar proportions to those at the start of the century. In the troubled closing years of the 20th Century, it remains to be seen whether religion can provide hope and guidance or whether there will be a return to secularism.

Impressed by the amount of material on religion found to be available whilst working on the Albania annotated bibliography for CLIO Press (Oxford, UK), combined with my own observations while traveling and working in Albania each year since l989, I was inspired to draw the information together.

My primary interest as an anthropologist has been tradition and change in Albania; I tend see the long-term development of religious tradition in relation to the short-term changes. I had begun this work before the disasters of the 'pyramid crisis' in Albania were followed by terrible violence, and whilst that affected every aspect of Albanian life, I see it having little connection to religion. The only connection would be to say that in this population, more than half of the whom has lost all their savings in the fraudulent schemes, many are also religious practitioners. Nor has the situation any similarity to that in Bosnia. D. Mihas, an independent political scientist, poet and linguist makes the point that "any kind of arbitrary comparisons between Albania and Bosnia ... with reference to the 'Islamic factor' could be entirely misleading" ₁

My focus is not so much on the content of the religions themselves as on the Albanian traditional and changing attitudes to religion in general. The publicist and writer Pashko Vasa (l825-92) first uttered the oft-quoted phrase, "The religion of Albania is Albanianism". Throughout history Albania has never fought religious wars and, as Frances Trix, anthropologist from Wayne State University, writes "in the context of external political threat, the impulse for unity among Albanian Muslims and Albanian Christians overcame religious division" ₂ . This was true whether under the Ottomans in the furtherance of the need for national unity or under Communist rule. Even today in the leadership of the Democratic League of Kosova, Muslims and Christians minimize their differences in their common aim to free themselves from Serb domination. ₃

There are even traditions which specifically bring together people of different religions, as with the ceremony of cutting the lock of a child's hair in its first year. The writer, James Bourchier describes this national custom whereby a father chooses a friend "a Christian if the father be a Moslem, and vice versa - to perform the ceremony" ₄ .

Mary Edith Durham documented the widespread mixing of people from different religions. Durham, a British woman, a self-taught anthropologist, writer and artist, spent the first two decades of this century traveling in the Balkans, took up the Albanian cause, wrote seven books on the Balkans and influenced British foreign policy. She was adamant that it was not religious difference that caused the bloodshed of the Balkan Wars. She observed and took photographs of religious processions. Some, taken in Scutari (today's Shkodër) show clearly from the clothing and headgear of the participants that they were from different religions. And the same was true when Pope Paul II visited Shkodra in l993. People attend religious ceremonies regardless of which faith they belong to, as a form of social gathering. Numerous Western travelers have remarked on this.

Religion in Albania before the 20th Century

The German scholar, Bernhard Tönnes found evidence of about 70 Christian families in Durrës at the time of the Apostles ₅ and by the 4th century there were eleven bishropics in the area and further south. Christianity flourished in the towns while the rural areas remained pagan in outlook. By the llth century, the Roman church was founded in northern Albania and by the end of the l3th it reached its zenith under Charles I of Anjou. The French historian, Alexandre Popovic' finds no evidence of Muslims in Albania before the first conversions to Islam started in l423 ₆ . Churches were gradually turned into mosques through the l5th and l6th Centuries, but mass conversions only took place in the l7th Century, so that by the early l8th Century today's Muslim proportion of 70% had been reached. During the 450 years of Ottoman domination after the death of Skanderbeg (in l468) there was massive Christian emigration to southern Italy, which is the origin of the Arbëresh communities still making up the majority, often the whole, of the populations of over 30 villages in the Calabria area. However, conversion to Islam was not strictly enforced. The scholar, H. T. Norris distinguishes between Islamization and Ottomanization. ₇ And Laurie Kain Hart and others who have done work on the Greek minority in southern Albania clarifying the need to distinguish between Greek and Orthodox. ₈

In many places people took two names, a Muslim one to avoid tax and a Christian one to avoid having to serve in their army. ₉ In the very remote areas life hardly changed under Ottoman occupation. Social traditions in the north have long been strictly guided by the Kanun (the set of laws first codified by the l5th Century nobleman Lek Dukagjin which remains in place to this day). ₁₀ The Japanese researcher, Kazuhiko Yamamoto, considers that 'the ethical structure of the Kanun is based on pagan culture'.

It has been noted that Albania is unique in Balkan history in lacking church support for liberation from Ottoman oppression, for "the Orthodox at times served Greek nationalist aims, the Catholic church served the imperialism of Venice or Rome, and the Moslems remained loyal to the Turkish rulers". ₁₁

Theodor Ippen who served as Austrian Consul General in Scutari (Shkodra) from l897-l904 records the protection offered to Albanian Catholics by the Habsburg Empire in the previous two centuries, under Turkish rule. Catholic missionaries active in the l7th and l8th Centuries, preached and taught in Latin or Italian: a high standard of education was made available. In southern Albania at this time, Greek was the language used in the few schools which existed. Korça has always been a centre of learning. It was here that Enver Hoxha attended and later taught at the French lycee.

Until this century both school-teaching and publishing in the Albanian language were forbidden, which accounts for the fact that there was no standard Albanian alphabet until the Congress of Manastir in l908. Gjerasim Qiriazi (l858-95), an early evangelist worked for the British and Foreign Bible Society which supplied bibles, the only work published in Albanian and distributed in Albania at the time.

The attitude toward religion during this century may be seen to pass through four phases: post-Ottoman, before, during and after the Communist period. There follow a few comments on each phase.

The first phase: prior to l9l2

The Scottish folklorist Margaret Hasluck (who lived for l3 years in Elbasan) notes that Bektashism was first introduced to Albania through the influence of Ali Pasha Tepelenë and that nine-tenths of the Muslim population of the South were said to be Bektashis, while the more numerous Sunnis lived mainly in central Albania. Muslims were a strong force in the National Awakening ₁₂ from the second half of the l9th Century onwards; it coincided with the Orthodox movement towards "Autocephaly" (self-governance). The National Awakening started in and around Prizren, but spread all over the Albanian territories. Two of the many influential personalities in the movement were the Jeronim de Rada ₁₃ Arberesh writer and philosopher, and Sami Frashëri, ideologue, writer and Ottoman scholar.

The second phase: from Independence in l9l2 until the Italian invasion of l939.

This was a time of rapid change, the Balkan Wars followed only a year after Independence, followed in turn by the First World War. At the Congress of Lushnje in l920, attended by over fifty delegates from all over Albania, the plans of the Great Powers (Austro-Hungary, France, Italy, Great Britain, Germany and Russia) to carve up Albania between Serbia, Greece, Italy and Yugoslavia were firmly rejected, and the capital moved from Durres to Tirana. By the end of the year Albania joined the League of Nations. The Albanian Bishop Fan Noli, who founded the Albanian Orthodox Church in the US in l908, gained power in Albania briefly in l924, through the so-called bourgeois revolution against the government dominated at the time by Zog, but did not have time or support to bring about the liberal reforms which were his ideals. Zog, first as president from l925 and later as King in l928, brought relative stabilty for a short period. As a Muslim monarch, he was more concerned with modernizing the country than imposing any religious dominance. All religions were allowed to flourish during this period. Zog himself was a Sunni Muslim.

In l925 when Ataturk forbade Bektashism in Turkey, Albania became the world Bektashi centre with an estimated 200,000 followers by l929, in a population of under one million. ₁₄

The third phase: the Second World War followed by Communism

Albania prides itself on being the only occupied European country during World War II, which had more Jews at the end than at the beginning, and which lost none to the Nazi concentration camps. If this seems unlikely, it is explained by the fact that Jews from surrounding countries and even Austria, fled to Albania where hospitality is part of traditional honor so that Jewish guests (brought by common friends or acquaintances) could always be sure of a welcome refuge. ₁₅

The Communist Committee, with Enver Hoxha as the head, met in Berat in October l944 and issued a model proclamation guaranteeing respect for the basic human rights, specifically: freedom of press, of association, freedom of religion and of conscience with equality of rights and for all religions. ₁₆ Individual religious worship was tolerated at this time. However the proclamation was completely disregarded.

Enver Hoxha, the notoriously repressive Stalinist dictator (l945 to his death in l985) used Vasa's phrase ('the religion of Albania is Albanianism') to justify his increased pressure to obliterate religion from Albania. The strong traditional ties of the northern Catholics with Rome were those most strongly feared and despised by the Communist leader. Shortly after coming to power, Hoxha started closing Catholic monasteries, confiscating land and property, ridiculing the clergy and sending them to do hard labour. Intensifying punishment for any religious practice, torture and murder became commonplace. The wearing of any religious symbol could be punished with up to l0 years' imprisonment. Muslims were able to defend themselves by the use of taqiya, the principle of the moral code which permits Muslims, under threat of persecution, to conceal or even to deny their faith.

By mid-century Bektashis of the Balkans looked to the US for its leadership the first Bektashi tekke in the US was constructed in l954 in Detroit, four years before the Albanian Orthodox church in the US was celebrating its 50th anniversary.

By l967 laws were in place to forbid any religious rites in Albania; all 2,l69 religious institutions were closed: turned to other uses or destroyed. ₁₇ The Museum of Atheism was constructed in Shkoder in l972 and chronicled the closing of religious institutions "by the will of the people". ₁₈ The new Constitution of l976 laid down in Article 37 that the state recognized no religion and Article 55 of the l977 Penal Code gave penalties, including the death sentence for religious activities. However, Peter Prifti writing in l984 was able to state "religion continues to be a living force in Albanian society" ₁₉ .

Throughout the Communist years, as long as they did not observe religious practices, there was no discrimination against Jews. Janice Broun, writer on religious persecution in Communist countries estimated that there were about 2,000 to 2,500 Jews in Albania. However, Harvey Sarner who wrote Rescue in Albania ₂₀ , describes how Josef Jakoel "a 20th Century Moses" in l99l led Albania's Jews in their airlifted emigration to Israel. Sarner estimates their numbers at only 250, although approximately 300 'Jews' actually went to Israel.

What would have been Hoxha's response had he heard the report of a visiting Albanian-American from their rural Albanian relatives: "Enver Hoxha is an angel sent to us by God"!

After his death in l985, his chosen successor Ramiz Alia allowed for some relaxation. The number of treasonable offences punishable with the death sentence was reduced from 34 to ll. By l988 Father Arthur Liolin (Chancellor of the Albanian Orthodox Diocese in America) was permitted to visit Albania, furthermore, in clerical garb, he performed "discrete religious activities on 7 different occasions ... led prayers at a cemetery"; one such gathering was attended by over 30 people. ₂₁

Of the very many historic churches and mosques, only a handful were kept in reasonable repair as national monuments or museums. One example is the l4th Century Orthodox church in Korça. Under Communism its historic value was appreciated, and in order to preserve and displaysuitably the art works and carved wooden iconostasis within, they built a concrete structure around it and called the whole a museum. With the fall of Communism the Church demanded to reclaim their place of worship, but while the intricacies of the rights were being resolved, the cheaply built museum was leaking and the invaluable religious artifacts deteriorating. The latest solution, sadly was for vandals to loot the church.

At Ardenica in central Albania the magnificent l5th Century monastery situated on a hilltop was the only Orthodox monastery to have remained untouched through most of the Communist period, by the l990's part of it was converted into a luxury hotel and restaurant. Most recently it is in dispute concerning ownership and use.

The fourth phase: under 'democracy'

In the early days of post-Communism it was remarkable how many young people, especially men, wore crosses, which only months earlier would have resulted in years of imprisonment under the Communist regime. Prior to l99l drab clothing was universal. In that year the change was extraordinary, with young people sporting t-shirts many of whose wide variety of slogans reflected the range of religious organizations vying for young souls. In l99l the State Secretariat of Religions was established to legally register the different religious communities in Albania. Over l20 new sects and faiths were officially registered between l99l and l996, mostly evangelical churches. Before there were churches in which to worship, services were conducted in graveyards, on hillsides, in the open air.

The l7th Century Ethem Bey mosque in Tirana (built by the same architect as the Blue Mosque in Istanbul) was closed throughout the Communist era, but not damaged. When it returned to use, huge posters were erected on three sides showing pictorially, and in arabic writing, how worshippers should prepare to enter the mosque.

When Communist law was swept aside, but no new legal framework put in its place, Albania was invaded once again: by business prospectors, "advisors" or all kinds, observers and religious groups who came to recruit for their faiths. A woman in the next airline seat to mine was very excited to be visiting Albania for a two-week stint for she had heard that "there are three million pagan souls to be saved". Other groups saw a source for recruiting followers to take to the US: a Florida Baptist group took over orphanages, treating the children to food and comfort they had never known. The cost was to learn English and the Baptist Faith behind locked gates while adoptions were arranged for the children in Florida.

The following year on the initiative of President Sali Berisha, himself a member of the Muslim population, the country was invited to join the Organization of the Islamic Conference; this triggered sharp debate over the fear that Albania was "distancing itself from the West as a whole and from Europe in particular". ₂₂

Elira Cela notes that nowadays there are conversions for non-religious reasons: someone with a Latin name and identity will find it easier to get an Italian visa, the Greek Embassy "issues visas only to Orthodox Christians". ₂₃

The Albanian Helsinki Committee of September l993 noted certain violations concerning religion, for example that there have been cases where directors of institutions have set religious criteria in employment policies; there are religious charities which only offer their gifts and money to members of their own religion.

Proportions of religions

Frances Trix asserts that the return of religion is not a 'rebirth' or a 'resurgence', but rather a resurfacing; that religious belief was never eliminated. She attributes this to the maintainance of links with Albanians in the diaspora (there are more Albanians living outside Albania than within it) and links with the international centres of the major religions. Today's believers retain just about the same proportions which existed before the Second World War: approximately 7l% Moslem to approximately 29% Christian, or to break it down further 55% Sunni Moslem to l6% Bektashi (of which about 5% are Shiite) ₂₄ and l9% Orthodox to l0% Catholic. These in turn are made up of people from roughly the same areas of Albania in which they lived before the War, but more than three times the population size.

Of almost 400 ministering Orthodox priests before the war, only eleven survived to witness the fall of Communism, and none of these were monks, therefore none was eligible to head the Albanian Church. In June l992, the Constantinople Patriarchate appointed Archbishop Anasthasios Yanoulatos (a Greek national) to head the Orthodox Church of Albania. Although Berisha's government accepted him, they refused three other Greek clergymen, which has affected Greek-Albanian relations. Up to l996 over l50 Orthodox churches had been built, reconstructed or repaired for use.

It has been widely reported that archaeological sites have been severly vandalized and looted following the violence in the wake of the 'pyramid crisis'. However there seems to be no evidence that this was directed towards the newly renovated and built religious institutions. A threat made concerning the large mosque in Shkodër (completed in l995), with a capacity for 2,500, was staved off by the very public show of the leaders of the three religious groups in that town, walking in unison through the streets, confirming earlier expressions of mutual respect. For, at the opening of the mosque bunting was tied on it and strung across the streets to the catholic cathedral (incidentally the largest catholic cathedral in the Balkans, renovated in l992 from its deteriorated condition as an atheletics hall).

Many wondered whether the vicious attempts to eliminate all forms of religious activity under Enver Hoxha's strict Stalinist 40-year rule would actually succeed. Albania was the only country to claim to be an atheist state, to criminalize religious activity and attempt to enforce atheism, but few would now endorse that the effects were lasting. An exception is Denis Janz writing in Religion in Eastern Europe in l996 who claims that religious practice was already declining before the Second World War, and now, after "two generations of Albanians have grown up in a religious vacuum ... interest in religion today is miniscule". ₂₅ With the move towards democracy, the churches and mosques were the first structures most evidently being built and renovated, and while it may be true that this work is initiated and financed from outside the country, it is attracting substantial congregations. This could be a result of curiosity, a lack of other entertainment, a welcoming of a new form of social life, an eagerness to receive the handouts offered to the faithful, but I see it as an expression of hope and an eager acceptance of something which for so long had been forbidden.

The concept of soul is central to both Christian and Muslim theology however Rajwantee Lakshman-Lepain ₂₆ claims that it is alien to Albanians, who even lack, she writes, an exact term to translate this word meaningfully.

With the fall of Communism, there was exhuberance: approximately l5,000 attended the first Catholic mass held in Shkodra, in the open air in one of very few cemeteries which had been preserved although all the crosses had been removed from the graves. Within the cemetery is a small chapel which was derelict, but it was a focus for that first celebration. In l99l a collection of damaged religious statues and church artifacts was brought by individuals who had kept them secretly, and at great risk, during all the Hoxha years, and now returned them to the church (in later years, and especially recently, such artifacts were sold abroad). Likewise, at the remote village of Theth, where the little traditional wooden slate-roofed church had had its bell tower removed, the bells had been safely preserved in private homes, and now hung from a tree, awaiting the time when they might once more be joined to the church. The church itself had been used as a grain-store and lacked part of the roof, but it was very roughly repaired and soon put to its original use.

Even during the difficult time of near anarchy, the foundation stone of a new cathedral in the ethnic Greek village of Kakavia in the Pano Dropoli region was laid. At the ceremony on l3th April, l997, Archbishop Anastasios offered "resistance to the wave of fear, flight and desperation". Despite widespread civic disorder and destruction of roads, bridges, schools and hospitals, there have been no reports of attacks on religious leaders or institutions in the chaotic lead up to the elections scheduled for 29th June.

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Footnotes

Note 1: "Another Balkan Dilemma: Albania and Kosovo", Contemporary Review, vol. 269, no. l566, July, l996, p. l4. Back.

Note 2: Trix, (July-October, l995), p. 294. Back.

Note 3: Trix, op. cit. p. 293. Back.

Note 4: In D. Beratti, Albania and the Albanians, Paris: Librarie Chapelot, l920?, p. 32 (footnote). Back.

Note 5: 'Religious persecution in Albania', Religion in Communist Lands, vol. l0, no. 3, l982. Back.

Note 6: L'Islam balkanique: les musulmans du sud-est européen dans la periode post-ottoman Back.

Note 7: Islam in the Balkans: religion and society between europe and the Arab World, London: Hurst & Co., l993. 304p. Back.

Note 8: with Kestrina Budina, "'Northern Epiros': the Greek minority in southern Albania', Cultural Survival Quarterly, vol. l9, issue no. 2 (Summer l995). Back.

Note 9: See Stavro Skendi, "Crypto-Christianity in the Balkan area under the Ottomans", Balkan Cultural Studies, p. 247. Back.

Note 10: Shtjefen Gjecov, Kanuni i Lek Dukagjinit, Tirana: Albniform, l993. See also my own "The code of Lekë Dukagjini", The Anthropology of East Europe Review, v. l3, n. l, Spring l995. Back.

Note 11: Anon, "Where God is dead", Economist, 27 December, l975, p. 26-27. Back.

Note 12: Peter Bartl, Die Albanischen Muslime zur Zeit der nationalen Unabhangigkeitsbewegung (l878-l9l2). Back.

Note 13: See "An Albanian seer" in Norman Doublas Old Calabria, London, Secker & Warburg, l955, p. l88-92. Back.

Note 14: Raymond Hutchings, Historical dictionary of Albania, Lanham, Maryland; London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., l996, p. 39. Back.

Note 15: Harvey Sarner with Joseph Jakoel, Felicita Jakoel, The Jews of Albania, Boston: Brunswick Press, l992. And Katherine Morris, editor and translator, Escape through the Balkans: the autobiography of Irene Grunbaum, Lincoln, Nebraska; London: University of Nebraska Press, l996. Back.

Note 16: Tönnes quotes articles l5 and l8 of the l946 Constitution. Back.

Note 17: Larry Luxner, "Islamic Rebirth", Aramco World, July-August, l992. Back.

Note 18: Anon, "Believe it or not", Economist vol. 268, no. 7043, 26 Aug, l978, p. 39. Back.

Note 19: In 'The Catholic Church in Albania: from the time of the Apostels to the present', Albanian Catholic Bulletin, vol. 5, l984. Back.

Note 20: Cathedral City, California: Brunswick Press, l997. Back.

Note 21: Religion in a fortress state, p. 4l. Back.

Note 22: 'Albanian Muslims, human rights and relations wth the Islamic world', in Muslim communities in the new Europe edited by Gerd Nonneman, Tim Niblock, Bogdan Szajkowsi, Reading, Ithaca Press, l996. Back.

Note 23: Cela, op. cit., p. l42. Back.

Note 24: Rajwantee Lakshman-Lepain, p. 20. Back.

Note 25: "Reflections on the religionless society: the case of Albania", Religion in Eastern Europe, vol. l6, no. 4, Aug. l996, p. 8. Back.

Note 26: "Religions between tradition and pluralism", Human Rights Without Frontiers, no. 2-3, l996, p. l0. Back.