Catholicism revives in Kosovo
In Kosovo, descendants of Roman Catholics who converted to Islam under duress when the Ottoman Turks governed the Balkans are returning to the fold. For centuries, these families lived as Muslims in public but Catholics in private. Now they are coming out of hiding to continue their families’ beliefs.
Hundreds of Kosovar Albanians gather on Sundays to attend religious services in a still unfinished red-brick church in the Kosovo town of Klina.
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The majority of ethnic Albanians were forcibly converted to Islam, mostly through the imposition of high taxes on Catholics, when the Ottoman Empire ruled the Balkans.For centuries, many remembered their Christian roots and lived as what they call “Catholics in hiding”. Some, nearly a century after the Ottomans left the Balkans, now see the chance to reveal their true beliefs.
Mother Teresa, an ethnic Albanian, is a heroine to many Kosovars. A towering cathedral is being built in her honour in Mother Teresa Square in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo.
Islamic leaders in Kosovo oppose both the cathedral and the “conversion” of nominal Muslims to their ancestral Catholic faith.
Over 90 percent of Kosovars are Muslims; only four percent are Roman Catholic.
[...] and forgotten; Christian leaders silent as believers attacked in India and Iraq; Catholicism revives in Kosovo …. (bfw, [...]