Bato
Mon, 22nd September 2008, 22:06:54
The majority of Albanians today are either atheists or agnostics. According to an official US Government Report 1: "No reliable data were available on active participation in formal religious services, but estimates ranged from 25 to 40 percent.", leaving 60 to 75 percent of the population non-religious. 2 3 4
The country does not have a history of religious extremism and takes pride in the harmony that exists across religious traditions and practices. Religious indifference and pragmatism continued as a distinctive trait of the society and interreligious marriage has been very common throughout the centuries, in some places even the rule. There is a strong unifying cultural identity, where Muslims and Christians see themselves as Albanian before anything else. This has been solidified historically by the common experience of struggling to protect the national culture in the face of various outside conquerors.
National Renaissance writer, poet
and publicist Pashko VasaA Rilindja Kombėtare (National Renaissance) intellectual and poet, Pashko Vasa (1825-1892), made the trenchant remark, later co-opted by the totalitarian state, that "Churches and mosques you shall not heed / The religion of Albanians is Albanism" (Gheg Albanian: "Mos shikoni kisha e xhamia / Feja e shqyptarit āsht shqyptaria").
Brief history
Antiquity
The two main Illyrian cults were the Cult of the Sun and the Cult of the Snake. 5 6 The main festivals were the seasonal summer and winter festivals during the solstices and the spring and autumn festivals during the equinoxes. An organic system of assigning human personifications to natural phenomena was culturally developed and remnants of these still appear in everyday Albanian folklore and tradition. 6
Middle Ages
The original culture continued until the late Roman and Byzantine Empires crowned Christianity as official religion of the regime, thus suffusing Paganism, until both were later overshadowed by Islam, which kept the scepter of the major religion during the period of Ottoman Turkish occupation of major urban centers from the 15th century until year 1912. Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholicism and Paganism kept being practiced in a lower scale.
After national liberation from the Ottoman Empire, in the 20th century, the monarchy and later the totalitarian state followed a systematic dereligionization of the nation and the national culture.
Monarchy
Religious institutions of all confessions were put under state control. In 1923, following the government program, the Albanian Muslim congress convened at Tirana decided to break with the Caliphate, establishing a new form of prayer (standing, instead of the traditional salah ritual), banishing polygamy and the mandatory use of veil (hijab) by women in public. 7 In 1929 the Albanian Orthodox Church was declared autocephalous. 8
A year later, in 1930, the first and, to date, last official religious census was carried out. Being of conventional nature it was based off the previously official Ottoman data which were on their turn based upon a theoretical "family religious background" and provided only four compulsive choices for general statistical purposes: Sunni Muslim, Orthodox Christian, Bektashi Muslim and Catholic Christian. 54% of the population was grouped on the first, 21% on the second, 15% on the third and 10% on the fourth, declaring a strict 100% religious population.
Totalitarian regime
The trend was taken to extreme during the totalitarian regime, when religions, previously identified as imports foreign to Albanian culture, were banned altogether. This policy was mainly applied and felt within the borders of the present Albanian state, thus producing a nonreligious absolute majority in the population.
The Agrarian Reform Law of August 1945 nationalized most property of religious institutions, including the estates of monasteries, orders, and dioceses. By May 1967, religious institutions had relinquished all 2,169 churches, mosques, cloisters, and shrines, many of which were converted into cultural centers for young people. Many Muslim imams and Orthodox priests renounced their "parasitic" past. More than 200 clerics of various faiths were imprisoned, others were forced to seek work in either industry or agriculture. As the literary monthly "Nėndori" (November) reported the event, the youth had thus "created the first atheist nation in the world."
From year 1967 to the end of the totalitarian regime, religious practices were constitutionally banned and the country was proclaimed officially atheist, marking an event that happened for the first time in world history. Albanians born during the communist regime were never taught religion, so they grew up to become either atheists or agnostics.
Children with national costumes on
the Summer Day 2007 festival, Tiranė
Summer Day festivities, 2007, TiranėOld non-institutional pagan practices in rural areas, which were seen as identifying with the national culture, were left intact. As a result the current Albanian state has also brought pagan festivals to life, like the solar Spring festival (Albanian: Dita e Verės – Summer Day) held yearly on March 14th in the city of Shkumbin (Elbasan), which is a national holiday.
Current status of religious freedom
Constitution
The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respects this right in practice. According to the 1998 Constitution, there is no official religion and all religions are equal; however, the predominant religious communities (Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians, Bektashi and Sunni Muslims) enjoy a greater degree of official recognition (e.g., national holidays) and social status based on their historical presence in the country. All registered religious groups have the right to hold bank accounts and to own property and buildings.
Summer Day festivities, 2007No restriction is imposed on families regarding the way they raise their children with respect to religious practices. The generally amicable relationship among religions in society contributed to religious freedom.
According to official figures, there are 14 religious schools in the country, with approximately 2,600 total students. The Ministry of Education has the right to approve the curricula of religious schools to ensure their compliance with national education standards, and the State Committee on Cults oversees implementation. There are also 68 vocational training centers administered by religious communities.
Government policy and practice contributed to the generally free practice of religion. The government is secular and the Ministry of Education asserts that public schools in the country are secular and that the law prohibits ideological and religious indoctrination. Religion is not taught in public schools.
Foreign missionaries
Foreign religious missionaries who have come to Albania since 1991 include Catholics, Evangelicals and Mormons who come mainly from the USA, Muslims from Arab countries and Turkey, Bahį'ķs, Jehovah's Witnesses, Hindus, and many others freely carry out religious activities. According to the State Committee on Cults, as of 2002 there were 31 Christian Societies representing more than 45 different organizations, about 17 different Islamic Societies and Groups and 500 to 600 other Christian and Bahį'ķ missionaries. The largest foreign missionary groups were American, British, Italian, Arab and Greek.
Incidents
While there is no law restricting the demonstration of religious affiliation in public schools, there have been instances when students were not allowed to do so in practice.
In 2002, some Bektashi communities outside of Tirana experienced intimidation, vandalism, and threats of violence. Subsequently, the Albanian authorities discovered those responsible (non-Albanian citizens) and expelled them for immigration violations. 9
The General Secretary of the Islamic Community of Albania, Sali Tivari, was shot and killed at the Community's headquarters in January 2003. The General Prosecutor's Office returned the case to the authorities for further investigation and it has remained unsolved by the end of the period covered by this report. 9
In October 2003, police arrested Kastriot Myftari, author of the book "Albanian National Islamism" on charges of inciting religious hatred against Islam. The book contained the author's opinions on Islam and how the religion has impacted Albanian life. The prosecutor had asked the court for 6 months imprisonment for the author. In June, the court acquitted Myftari of all charges. 9
During year 2004 representatives of the Orthodox Church expressed concerns that churches, crosses, and other buildings were targets of vandalism. 10
In November 2005 a speech from Albania's president in London 11, aroused public protests from “The Muslim Forum” organization that accused the president of insulting Islam.
Early in 2005, some elements of the media repeatedly attacked the Jehovah's Witnesses community, alleging their influence in a recent series of juvenile suicides. Other religious communities expressed similar problems after the media attack on the Jehovah's Witnesses community.10
http://vargmal.org/dan1628
Good and accurate.
The country does not have a history of religious extremism and takes pride in the harmony that exists across religious traditions and practices. Religious indifference and pragmatism continued as a distinctive trait of the society and interreligious marriage has been very common throughout the centuries, in some places even the rule. There is a strong unifying cultural identity, where Muslims and Christians see themselves as Albanian before anything else. This has been solidified historically by the common experience of struggling to protect the national culture in the face of various outside conquerors.
National Renaissance writer, poet
and publicist Pashko VasaA Rilindja Kombėtare (National Renaissance) intellectual and poet, Pashko Vasa (1825-1892), made the trenchant remark, later co-opted by the totalitarian state, that "Churches and mosques you shall not heed / The religion of Albanians is Albanism" (Gheg Albanian: "Mos shikoni kisha e xhamia / Feja e shqyptarit āsht shqyptaria").
Brief history
Antiquity
The two main Illyrian cults were the Cult of the Sun and the Cult of the Snake. 5 6 The main festivals were the seasonal summer and winter festivals during the solstices and the spring and autumn festivals during the equinoxes. An organic system of assigning human personifications to natural phenomena was culturally developed and remnants of these still appear in everyday Albanian folklore and tradition. 6
Middle Ages
The original culture continued until the late Roman and Byzantine Empires crowned Christianity as official religion of the regime, thus suffusing Paganism, until both were later overshadowed by Islam, which kept the scepter of the major religion during the period of Ottoman Turkish occupation of major urban centers from the 15th century until year 1912. Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholicism and Paganism kept being practiced in a lower scale.
After national liberation from the Ottoman Empire, in the 20th century, the monarchy and later the totalitarian state followed a systematic dereligionization of the nation and the national culture.
Monarchy
Religious institutions of all confessions were put under state control. In 1923, following the government program, the Albanian Muslim congress convened at Tirana decided to break with the Caliphate, establishing a new form of prayer (standing, instead of the traditional salah ritual), banishing polygamy and the mandatory use of veil (hijab) by women in public. 7 In 1929 the Albanian Orthodox Church was declared autocephalous. 8
A year later, in 1930, the first and, to date, last official religious census was carried out. Being of conventional nature it was based off the previously official Ottoman data which were on their turn based upon a theoretical "family religious background" and provided only four compulsive choices for general statistical purposes: Sunni Muslim, Orthodox Christian, Bektashi Muslim and Catholic Christian. 54% of the population was grouped on the first, 21% on the second, 15% on the third and 10% on the fourth, declaring a strict 100% religious population.
Totalitarian regime
The trend was taken to extreme during the totalitarian regime, when religions, previously identified as imports foreign to Albanian culture, were banned altogether. This policy was mainly applied and felt within the borders of the present Albanian state, thus producing a nonreligious absolute majority in the population.
The Agrarian Reform Law of August 1945 nationalized most property of religious institutions, including the estates of monasteries, orders, and dioceses. By May 1967, religious institutions had relinquished all 2,169 churches, mosques, cloisters, and shrines, many of which were converted into cultural centers for young people. Many Muslim imams and Orthodox priests renounced their "parasitic" past. More than 200 clerics of various faiths were imprisoned, others were forced to seek work in either industry or agriculture. As the literary monthly "Nėndori" (November) reported the event, the youth had thus "created the first atheist nation in the world."
From year 1967 to the end of the totalitarian regime, religious practices were constitutionally banned and the country was proclaimed officially atheist, marking an event that happened for the first time in world history. Albanians born during the communist regime were never taught religion, so they grew up to become either atheists or agnostics.
Children with national costumes on
the Summer Day 2007 festival, Tiranė
Summer Day festivities, 2007, TiranėOld non-institutional pagan practices in rural areas, which were seen as identifying with the national culture, were left intact. As a result the current Albanian state has also brought pagan festivals to life, like the solar Spring festival (Albanian: Dita e Verės – Summer Day) held yearly on March 14th in the city of Shkumbin (Elbasan), which is a national holiday.
Current status of religious freedom
Constitution
The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respects this right in practice. According to the 1998 Constitution, there is no official religion and all religions are equal; however, the predominant religious communities (Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians, Bektashi and Sunni Muslims) enjoy a greater degree of official recognition (e.g., national holidays) and social status based on their historical presence in the country. All registered religious groups have the right to hold bank accounts and to own property and buildings.
Summer Day festivities, 2007No restriction is imposed on families regarding the way they raise their children with respect to religious practices. The generally amicable relationship among religions in society contributed to religious freedom.
According to official figures, there are 14 religious schools in the country, with approximately 2,600 total students. The Ministry of Education has the right to approve the curricula of religious schools to ensure their compliance with national education standards, and the State Committee on Cults oversees implementation. There are also 68 vocational training centers administered by religious communities.
Government policy and practice contributed to the generally free practice of religion. The government is secular and the Ministry of Education asserts that public schools in the country are secular and that the law prohibits ideological and religious indoctrination. Religion is not taught in public schools.
Foreign missionaries
Foreign religious missionaries who have come to Albania since 1991 include Catholics, Evangelicals and Mormons who come mainly from the USA, Muslims from Arab countries and Turkey, Bahį'ķs, Jehovah's Witnesses, Hindus, and many others freely carry out religious activities. According to the State Committee on Cults, as of 2002 there were 31 Christian Societies representing more than 45 different organizations, about 17 different Islamic Societies and Groups and 500 to 600 other Christian and Bahį'ķ missionaries. The largest foreign missionary groups were American, British, Italian, Arab and Greek.
Incidents
While there is no law restricting the demonstration of religious affiliation in public schools, there have been instances when students were not allowed to do so in practice.
In 2002, some Bektashi communities outside of Tirana experienced intimidation, vandalism, and threats of violence. Subsequently, the Albanian authorities discovered those responsible (non-Albanian citizens) and expelled them for immigration violations. 9
The General Secretary of the Islamic Community of Albania, Sali Tivari, was shot and killed at the Community's headquarters in January 2003. The General Prosecutor's Office returned the case to the authorities for further investigation and it has remained unsolved by the end of the period covered by this report. 9
In October 2003, police arrested Kastriot Myftari, author of the book "Albanian National Islamism" on charges of inciting religious hatred against Islam. The book contained the author's opinions on Islam and how the religion has impacted Albanian life. The prosecutor had asked the court for 6 months imprisonment for the author. In June, the court acquitted Myftari of all charges. 9
During year 2004 representatives of the Orthodox Church expressed concerns that churches, crosses, and other buildings were targets of vandalism. 10
In November 2005 a speech from Albania's president in London 11, aroused public protests from “The Muslim Forum” organization that accused the president of insulting Islam.
Early in 2005, some elements of the media repeatedly attacked the Jehovah's Witnesses community, alleging their influence in a recent series of juvenile suicides. Other religious communities expressed similar problems after the media attack on the Jehovah's Witnesses community.10
http://vargmal.org/dan1628
Good and accurate.