Two men chatting in front of a church in the village of Llapushnik, Kosovo, where a baptism ceremony took place in NovemberPosted on 01/07/2025 4:33:15 AM PST by Cronos
Two men chatting in front of a church in the village of Llapushnik, Kosovo, where a baptism ceremony took place in November
The Catholic priest stood at the altar in the hilltop church for the mass baptism, dunking dozens of heads in water and tracing a cross with his finger on each forehead.
Then he rejoiced at Christianity’s recovery of souls in a land where the vast majority of people are Muslim — as the men, women and children standing before him had been.
The ceremony was one of many in recent months in Kosovo, a formerly Serbian territory inhabited largely by ethnic Albanians that declared itself an independent state in 2008. In a census last spring, 93 percent of the population professed itself Muslim and only 1.75 percent Roman Catholic.
A small number of ethnic Albanian Christian activists, all converts from Islam, are urging their ethnic kin to look to the church as an expression of their identity. They call it the “return movement,” a push to revive a pre-Islamic past they see as an anchor of Kosovo’s place in Europe and a barrier to religious extremism spilling over from the Middle East.
Until the Ottoman Empire conquered what is today Kosovo and other areas of the Balkans in the 14th century, bringing with it Islam, ethnic Albanians were primarily Catholics. Under Ottoman rule, which lasted until 1912, most of Kosovo’s people switched faiths.
By reversing that process, said Father Fran Kolaj, the priest who carried out the baptisms outside the village of Llapushnik, ethnic Albanians can recover their original identity.
..“It is time for us to return to the place where we belong — with Christ,” Father Kolaj said in an interview
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Traces of Kosovo’s distant pre-Islamic past also survived in a small number of families that clung to Roman Catholicism despite the risk of being ostracized by their Muslim neighbors.Marin Sopi, 67, a retired Albanian language teacher who was baptized 16 years ago, said his family had been “closet Catholics” for generations. In childhood, he recalled, he and his family observed Ramadan with Muslim friends but secretly celebrated Christmas at home.
“We were Muslims during the day and Christians at night,” he said. Since coming out as a Christian, he said, 36 members of his extended family have formally abandoned Islam.
Activists in the return movement believe that ethnic Albanians also need to cement their national loyalties with religion in the form of Roman Catholicism.Boik Breca, a former Muslim active in the movement, insisted that the Catholic church is not an alien intrusion but the true expression of Albanian identity and evidence that Kosovo belongs in Europe.
yeah being a former muslim is very dangerous. Good luck to these folks.
The fact that the NYT has to write a piece about Muslims not killing and attacking other religions is kind of telling.
“Muslim land” always means stolen land, where the people are enslaved and told to either convert or die. There is no country that is Muslim that was not conquered and given that choice.
A muslim friend from Kosovo has frequently mentioned to me that, “In my heart, I feel like I’m a Catholic, because we were forcibly converted by the sword.”
I’ve never been to Kosovo, but I’ve spent time in neighboring Albania. It would probably surprise some, but Kosovo and Albania are among the most pro-American countries on Earth. Albania has become quite tolerant of Christianity. At one point we were even allowed to rent an important government facility to hold worship services. Islam has traditionally held a tighter hold on Kosovo. Any movement toward the rise of Christianity there is good news.
Albania’s national hero is Skanderbeg - a Christian leader who fought the Ottomans
Not unusual for Albanians to switch faiths, they’ve been doing it for centuries. Sometimes a whole village switches.
With a nice monument of him with his horse in the central square of Tirane.
Albania experienced the ultimate form of Communism for 40+ years.
I have to wonder about the nyt doing this article if perhaps they aren’t hopeful that Muslims will react violently towards the Christians there because of it?
likewise - I told my wife that because it was a pro-Christian article IN the NYT, there is a high chance that this is not only true, but the % of Christians is underreported
“Under Ottoman rule, which lasted until 1912, most of Kosovo’s people switched faiths.”
Or else!
St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta was born in Albania.
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