Eastern Orthodoxy in Albania
Decades of persecution under the Communist state atheism, which started in 1967 and officially ended in December 1990, greatly weakened all religions and their practices especially Christians of Albania.
The post-communist period and the lifting of legal and other government restrictions on religion allowed Orthodoxy to revive through institutions and enabled the development of new infrastructure, literature, educational facilities, international transnational links and other social activities.
[2] It was Saint Astius, a 2nd-century Illyrian and Christian martyr venerated by the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, that served as bishop of Durrës (Dyrrachium), during the time of the emperor Trajan (98–117).
[4] In the 11th century, the Roman Catholic church created the archbishopric in Bar, that brought the bishoprics of Drivast, Ulcinj, Shkodër, and others under its control.
[10][11] The city of Berat from 1670 onward became mainly Muslim and its conversion is attributed in part to a lack of Christian priests being able to provide religious services.
[12] Differences between Christian Albanians of central Albania and archbishops of Ohrid led to conversions to Bektashi Islam that made an appeal to all while insisting little on ritual observance.
[14][15] The conversion to Islam of most of central Albania has thus been attributed in large part to the role its geography played in the socio-political and economic fortunes of the region.
Examples include the coastal villages of Borsh attacking Piqeras in 1744, making some flee abroad to places such as southern Italy.
[6][16] Other conversions such as those in the region of Labëria occurred due to ecclesiastical matters when for example during a famine the local Orthodox bishop refused to grant a break in the fast to consume milk with threats of hell.
[30] Conversion to Islam also was undertaken for economic reasons which offered a way out of heavy taxation such as the jizya or poll tax and other difficult Ottoman measures imposed on Christians while opening up opportunities such as wealth accumulation and so on.
[5][12][15][30] Additionally the reliance of the bishoprics of Durrës and southern Albania upon the declining Archbishopric of Ohrid, due in part to simony weakened the ability of Orthodox Albanians in resisting conversion to Islam.
[32][33][5][26][34] Gorë, a borderland region straddling contemporary north-eastern Albania and southern Kosovo, had a Slavic Orthodox population which converted to Islam during the latter half of the eighteenth century due to the abolition of the Serbian Patriarchate of Peć (1766) and subsequent unstable ecclesiastical structures.
[35] By the mid-19th century, because of the Tanzimat reforms started in 1839, which imposed mandatory military service on non-Muslims, the Orthodox Church lost adherents as the majority of Albanians had become Muslim.
[37] Hohxa propagated that Albania is threatened by religion in general, since it serves the "Trojan Horse" style interests of the country's traditional enemies; in particular Orthodoxy those of Greece and Serbia.
As Bishop of Androusa, Anastasios was dividing his time between his teaching duties at the University of Athens and the Archbishopric of Irinoupolis in Kenya, which was then going through a difficult patch, before his appointment.
Apart from the two ecclesiastical high schools, it has established three elementary schools (1st – 9th grade), 17 day-care centers and two institutes for professional training (named "Spirit of Love", established in Tirana in 2000) which are said to be the first of their kind in Albania and provide education in the fields of Team Management, IT Accounting, Computer Science, Medical Laboratory, Restoration and Conservation of Artwork and Byzantine Iconography.
A workshop for the restoration and painting of icons was established with the aim to train a new generation of artists, to revive the rich tradition of iconography.
In August 2013, demonstrations took place[42] by the Orthodox community of Përmet as a result of the confiscation of the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin and the forcible removal of the clergy and of religious artifacts from the temple, by the state authorities.
[44][46] There is a widespread belief that the Orthodox faith is linked with conspiracy theories in which the identification with Greek expansionist plans would classify them as potential enemies of the state.
[47] In early 2014 in a trip to the US, Archbishop Anastasios was met by protestors from the Albanian diaspora who oppose his position as head of the church due to him being from Greece.
[59] Around the fall of the Ottomon empire, as based on the late Ottoman census of 1908 and the Austrian-run Albanian census of 1918, the regions that retained the highest percentages of Orthodox Albanians, in some cases absolute majorities, were in the South (especially around Saranda, Gjirokastra, Përmeti, Leskoviku, Pogradeci and Korça[58]) and the Myzeqe region of Central Albania (especially around Fier, where they formed a strong majority of the population).
In the 2011 census the declared religious affiliation of the population was: 56.7% Muslims, 13.79% undeclared, 10.03% Catholics, 6.75% Orthodox believers, 5.49% other, 2.5% Atheists, 2.09% Bektashis and 0.14% other Christians.
Tveit expressed this concern in letters issued at the beginning of May to the WCC president Archbishop Anastasios, to Prof. Dr Heiner Bielefeldt, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, and to the Albanian government.
