Albania

Long considered Europe's most isolated country, located next to the former Yugoslavia on the Adriatic Sea, Albania after the end of the Cold War became open to diverse cultural influences and global religious trends. With an ethnically homogeneous population of more than 3.6 million, the general estimates of religious diversity purport the population to be 70% Muslim, 20% Albanian Orthodox, and 10% Roman Catholic. These statistics, based on a pre-1944 census of questionable merit, misleadingly characterize the diversity of religious identification and adherence in what was the world's only officially atheist country. Most Albanians retain an indifference toward religion, though many acknowledge some religious affiliation, at least as an ethnic marker if not as a lived category, but its role in people's lives is developing dynamically.

Christianity established itself as the dominant religion at the beginning of the second century. By the end of the fourth century, the territory had come under the political authority of Byzantium and the ecclesiastical authority of Rome. This dual authority became more boldly demarcated by the 1054 schism, when Christians living in the south came under Constantinople's control and those in the north maintained connection to the papacy. In the 14th century, Albania fell under Ottoman rule. Although the millet system allowed non-Muslims to maintain their religious traditions, taxing differentials resulted in sizable pragmatic conversions to Islam. Despite this “acceptance” of Islam, while Albania was under Ottoman rule, some men would circumvent regulations by having two names: one Christian and another Muslim.

In 1912, Albania declared independence from the Ottoman Empire. As the Ottoman Empire came to an end and Atatürk's reforms began to be implemented in Turkey, the leaders of the Bektashi Sufi Order (Shi'a) moved their headquarters to newly independent Albania. In 1944, however, communist partisans seized control of the country and initiated 46 years of xenophobic rule. In 1967, Enver Hoxha took draconian measures to emasculate groups that threatened his control base and banned religion. Under his rule, religion was suppressed more than anywhere else in the communist world.

Religious practice was allowed again in 1990, and in 1991, the country ended its self-imposed communist seclusion. Protestant missionaries rushed to “save” the atheist population, though their successes have been modest at best. Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Sunnī (Hanafi) Islam, and Bektashism remain the most locally identifiable religious groups, though the salience of these identities is quite elastic; some claim affiliation to affirm regional and political distinctions. Although many secular elites minimize religion's importance, preferring to emphasize ethnic cohesion over religious affinity, regionalist agendas are taking on a religious identity, and religious indifference—collo-quially characterized as tolerance—is being replaced by religio-political associations.