Laramans
The term Laraman in Albanian refers to crypto-Christians who adhered to Islam officially but continued to practice Christianity within the household during the Ottoman era.
It was derived from the Albanian adjective i larmë, meaning "variegated, motley, two-faced",[1] a metaphor of "two-faithed" (l'arë),[2] a reference to the Laramans following both Christianity (in secret) and Islam (nominally).
The phenomenon was widespread in the mid to late Ottoman era among both northern and southern Albanians, and arose after half-hearted conversions in the contexts of anti-Christian persecution, to avoid payment of poll taxes, and to obtain worldly advantages such as government employment.
[3] While the Orthodox church typically tolerated crypto-Christians among its flocks, Catholic policy varied by place and time between having priests travel to laraman houses in secret, and categorically refusing anyone who called themselves Muslim in public sacraments.
While some experts as well as some church officials regard the laramans as remaining entirely Christian in beliefs while professing Islam due to necessity, and others have pointed to practical considerations underpinning the phenomenon.
In the 1600s, the Ottomans organized a concerted campaign of Islamization that was not typically applied elsewhere in the Balkans, in order to ensure the loyalty of the rebellious Albanian population.
[12] The failed 1645 plot by Venice to seize Shkodër with the aid of local Catholics was followed by a wave of anti-Catholic persecution which saw increased conversion as well as flight of the Albanian population into Venetian-controlled Dalmatia.
[13] Bizzi noted that this was one of many such cases, and within Ottoman territories, this was above all widespread in Albania, where entire villages had apostatized to avoid paying the poll tax.
[14] In 1700, the Papacy passed to Pope Clement XI, who was himself of Albanian-Italian origins and held great interest in the welfare of his Catholic Albanian kinsmen, and would become known for composing the Illyricum sacrum.
[18] The Provincial Church Council met in the city of Lezha in northern Albania, in 1703, in order to put an end to the controversy about sacraments to laramans.
[14] In 1743, Apostolic Visitor Nikolic reported to Pope Benedict XIV on the situation of the "church of Serbia", which Skendi notes was the diocese territory of Prizren and Skopje, and "in various ways linked to Albania proper", especially since the population was mostly Albanian and had been under the jurisdiction of Antivari".
Nikolic feared that the situation would ultimately turn them "heart and soul" over to Islam, and he requested that the Pope issue an order "chiaro e chiarissimo" that the sacraments would be withheld from such Christians; Benedict XIV did just that on 2 February 1744.
[25] An ethnic Albanian crypto-Catholic community of laramans existed in Ottoman-era southern Kosovo, inhabiting the historical parish of Letnica, centered in Stublla (Vitina municipality).
The community originated from Roman Catholic Albanian migrants from the northern Albania highlands who had settled in Kosovo in the beginning of the 18th century, who converted into Islam in order to secure supreme position in relation to the local Serbs.
[26] According to Albanian Catholic priests and church historians, they were only nominal Muslims, having converted in order to escape repression or avoid paying Christian taxes (jizya, etc.).
[1] Because the Muslim elite in Kosovo feared their shift to Catholicism could have a domino effect, as a deterrent,[28] they were deported in the winter and spring of 1845 and 1846 to Anatolia, where many of them died.
[34] As part of the laraman legacy, Catholic Albanians in Stublla still wear the dimije, harem trousers that are typically worn only by Muslim women, among other "Muslim-like" habits.
The main instigator for the beginning of mass conversions in the region were the draconian measures adopted by the Ottomans after the two failed local revolts, in which both Christians and the Muslim (then) minority participated.
[34] There have been reports of Albanians in Klina and the surrounding regions,[47] as well as Rugova and Drenica[48] and southern Kosovo, converting to Catholicism, and asserting a laraman heritage, in which the Catholic faith was maintained and transmitted by mothers, daughters and sisters, and Ramadan was celebrated alongside Christmas and Easter.
Converts frequently cite a laraman heritage, or at least an ancestral link to Catholicism,[51] as do some Albanian academics and clergy on the topic, such as Don Shan Zefi and Father Lush Gjergji.
He suspects that laramanism had become "obselete" in Karadag (Letnica) due to the early 19th century lack of priests and churches in the area,[55] and wonders how Catholic the identities of inhabitants of Stublla really were before their "martyrdom".
He suggests that for many of them, the declaration of Catholicism had more to do with avoiding military service, and "crypto-Christian" practice became more tenable after the Catholic church re-established a stable presence in the area in the late nineteenth century.
[58] A number of scholars explain the spread of Bektashi Sufi order among Albanians in part because it allowed itself to be a vehicle for the expression of Crypto-Christian beliefs and rituals.
The great expansion of Bektashism in southern Albania is considered to have occurred from the beginning of the 19th century under the influence of Ali Pasha Tepelena who ruled a region where Christians and Muslims coexisted.
