Where Religion Has Disappeared

When Edwin and Dorothy Jacques left Albania at the beginning of World War II, they thought they would be back in a short time. But nearly half a century passed before they were allowed to return to the small Eastern European country.

The retired missionaries’ 10-day visit last year was nothing short of a miracle. For some three decades, no American without Albanian relatives had been permitted to visit the country nestled between Greece and Yugoslavia on the Adriatic Sea. And since the Communist regime—in power for 43 years—proudly identifies Albania as the world’s only atheist state, Christians don’t expect a warm welcome.

Still, for 40 years the Jacqueses filed one visa application after another. Finally, they wrote directly to the country’s top leader, Ramiz Alia, and two years later a tourist visa was granted.

First-Class Tour

When they arrived in Albania, the Jacqueses were met by representatives of the Committee on Cultural and Friendly Relations with Foreigners. They were provided with a chauffeur and a guide, and housed in the country’s best hotels—all at government expense. They asked their hosts a question to which they never got a clear answer: “Why are you doing this?”

“You asked to come here, and we invited you,” the retired missionaries were told. “Tourists come here on their own, but you are our guests.”

Since they left Albania in 1940, the Jacqueses say, the country has become much more industrialized. “No longer did we see the familiar tinsmiths sitting cross-legged on the floor of their little shops tapping out and soldering rather crude metal utensils,” said Edwin Jacques. “But we saw a vast, sprawling metallurgical plant employing over 10,000 workers, producing just about every steel product needed in the country.”

Forty years ago, only 20 percent of Albanians were literate, and life expectancy was 38 years. Today, 75 percent of the country’s citizens can read, and their life expectancy is 72 years. The progress observed by the Jacqueses was hailed by officials as the result of careful centralized planning and tight controls.

Albania’s economy is stable—the country produces enough food for its own population, and it boasts an even balance of trade. Yet with per capita income of less than $1,000, it is still the poorest country in Europe.

Invisible Religion

For most of its 2,000-year history, Albania has been dominated by foreign powers. Jacques, who is writing a book on the country’s history, believes this is why its citizens highly prize security and accept the Stalinist restriction of individual freedoms. Those restrictions are perhaps nowhere more evident than in the realm of religion.

“Those who persist in religious practices are enemies of the state and traitors,” the Jacqueses were told. “All traitors must be shot.” A state official put it even more graphically: “The dissenter must be destroyed, like a weasel in the chicken coop.”

The government’s opposition to religion is much more than tough talk. In the years after the Communist regime gained power, it tortured and murdered virtually every leader of the three main religious groups. In 1967, the government declared the practice of religion illegal. All of the 2,169 religious buildings in the country were razed or converted to other uses.

The Jacqueses looked in vain for churches that once dominated the landscape. “Many mosques, churches, and monasteries disappeared without a trace,” Jacques says. All religious symbols have disappeared as well. Crosses were removed from grave sites, and the wayside shrines formerly sprinkled throughout the countryside are gone. Instead, statues and portraits of Communist pioneers and national heroes proliferate.

“Albania’s only religion now is Albanianism,” Jacques reports. He describes it as a blend of patriotism, sports, education, and culture. “They have a nationwide sports program and competitions in folk dance, poetry, literature, and drama. This seems to have been substituted for religion.”

The country’s official atheism contrasts sharply with its deeply religious past. For centuries, three main religions vied for the hearts of Albanians, and by World War II nearly all the country’s citizens claimed allegiance to a religion. Some 70 percent were Muslims; 20 percent were Orthodox Christians; and 10 percent were Roman Catholics. Only about 100 Albanians were Protestants.

The Protestants met informally because they were prevented by law from forming a church. The law required a worshiping community to number 300 before a church could be organized officially. Jacques says the Muslim-controlled government that preceded the Communist regime discouraged people from becoming Christians. “Whenever people announced they were to be baptized,” he says, “they would be imprisoned.”

Outside Interest

Missions leaders list Albania as perhaps the least evangelized country in the world, and for decades Western Christians largely ignored the plight of believers there. Recently, however, Jacques says he has observed renewed interest in the country.

Information about Albania is exchanged among Christians in England, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, and the United States. Missionaries work among Albanian-speaking Yugoslavs and Greeks who live outside the country, but who are fairly free to move about within Albania. And at least two Christian radio programs are beamed into the country.

Jacques says he is not aware of any clandestine home-church meetings. Yet Patrick Johnstone’s Operation World (STL Books) reports that Albanian newspapers in 1975 complained of an increase in the public and secret practice of religion. And in 1981, he said, a wave of Christian arrests was reported.

In the face of such dire developments, Jacques says he is optimistic about the Albanian church’s future. “You see what happened in China when it looked as if the whole Christian enterprise had gone down the drain,” he says. “I feel that in the same way good things are happening in Albania. I’m looking forward to the day when Albanian leaders will moderate their hostile stance toward all religion and give the gospel a chance.”

By Sharon E. Mumper.

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