Albania's Journey from Atheism to Model of Religious Growth

Albania, which in 1967 became the world’s first official atheistic state, is now fast becoming a model of religious growth and an example to the rest of Europe, according to a senior Orthodox official.

Georges Tsetsis, an Orthodox priest and former representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to the World Council of Churches, was speaking to Ecumenical News International (ENI) after accompanying Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos on his first visit to the Albanian Orthodox Church earlier this month. The Ecumenical Patriarch is the world’s senior Orthodox Church leader.

Religious organizations were strictly forbidden under Albania’s hard-line communism.

The Orthodox Church was officially re-established only in the early 1990s and had, Tsetsis told ENI, made “enormous strides” since then.

“When Archbishop Anastasios came to Albania [in 1991], the church had five old priests,” Tsetsis said. “Now the church has 110 priests, many of them young. It has a brand new seminary with 100 students, male and female. Anastasios has built 72 new churches, restored 65 old churches and monasteries and repaired a further 130 church buildings. The Theological Academy of the Resurrection, which was located in rented rooms in a hotel, has had a brand new building of its own since 1997. The church also has its own high school, medical centers, kindergartens and other social institutions.”

Both within Orthodox circles and in the worldwide ecumenical movement, Anastasios has earned a reputation as one of the most capable and spiritual of church leaders. This reputation was confirmed during the Kosovo conflict when, despite Serbian criticism, his church made major efforts to assist Muslim refugees flooding into his country from Kosovo.

However in 1992 the election of Archbishop Anastasios as Primate of the Albanian Church by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, prompted deep resistance among Albanians, including some Albanian Orthodox Christians, because Anastasios is of Greek origin. Much of this hostility was also directed towards the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which had first sent Anastasios to Albania in 1991, after the fall of the communist government, to prepare the way for the church’s re-establishment. The appointment of three other Greek-born bishops to Albania provoked similar resentment.

Tsetsis told ENI that the welcome extended to Patriarch Bartholomeos by the government during his visit showed how much the situation had changed since 1992 and indeed since the communist era when Enver Hoxha’s government had banned religion. The patriarch was warmly received by Albania’s president and prime minister and, in several major cities, by Roman Catholic, Muslim and Bektashi (a Shiite dervish order) representatives, as well as by government and municipal officials.

“The very fact that at a reception given by Archbishop Anastasios in honor of Patriarch Bartholomeos there were not only Orthodox bishops and church members present, but also the President, the Prime Minister, the Speaker of the Parliament, and the whole of the Parliament itself, most of whose members are Muslims, shows how things have radically changed in Albania, and that includes the government’s attitude towards the church,” Tsetsis told ENI. He added that this “miracle achieved within only eight years” showed that the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s decision to send Anastasios to Albania had been “wise and perceptive”.

During the patriarch’s visit both President Rexhep Meidani and Prime Minister Ilir Meta praised the peaceful co-existence of Albania’s various religious communities. “Albanian politicians should draw lessons from the tolerance expressed among the faithful,” Prime Minister Meta said.

“Only a person like Anastasios, with a profound theological formation and strong administrative skills, as well as a mission background, particularly in Africa, could achieve so much within this short period,” Tsetsis said.

“I believe,” Tsetsis added, “that in a period when church buildings in Europe are being converted into concert halls and exhibition centers, when parishes are being closed because of a lack of vocations, the Orthodox Church of Albania stands out as an example. Does Europe need a major calamity to rediscover her own Christian identity?”

Tsetsis said that the Orthodox Church had also become the main investor in Albania thanks to funds donated by Christians in Greece, by Greek Americans and by donor agencies following round-table discussions coordinated by the World Council of Churches in Geneva. The church itself was directly involved in the construction of schools, clinics and other buildings, and was providing work for hundreds of Albanians.

Asked if there was a risk that the donation of funds from Greek-linked sources could suggest the church was a de facto Greek church, Tsetsis said that Greece and Italy were the two most important financial powers supporting the growth of Albania’s economy, a fact which US President Bill Clinton had welcomed during his recent visit to Athens. As a result, Albanians were realizing that they had every interest in pursuing a friendly relationship with Greece, Tsetsis said. He added that the Orthodox Church of Albania was truly a multi-ethnic church that included Albanians, Greeks—mainly in the south near the Greek border—Montenegrins and Romanian-speaking Vlachs. The diversity and multi-ethnic character of the Albanian Orthodox Church was stressed in the official “Act” of the Ecumenical Patriarchate granting autocephaly—self-government—to the church in 1937.

During his visit to Albania, from November 2 to 9, the Ecumenical Patriarch stressed the need for tolerance and the importance of Albania’s own ethnic traditions. “We want to assist people to find and develop their faith, and cultivate virtue, especially through the means of their own language and culture,” the patriarch said.

There are wide divergences between the various estimates of the strength of religious confessions in Albania. According to the Albanian news agency, ANA, about 70 per cent of the population of 3.5 million is Muslim, about 20 percent is Orthodox and 10 per cent Roman Catholic.