A CHRISTMAS tree dominates the centre of Pristina. Nearby a huge Catholic cathedral is being built. Farther off stand statues of two Albanian heroes: Mother Teresa of Calcutta, a Catholic nun, and Skanderbeg, a medieval prince who renounced Islam for Catholicism. Yet 95% of Kosovo’s 1.8m ethnic Albanians, out of a total population of 2m, are nominally Muslim. Don Shan Zefi, a Catholic cleric, says there are only 65,000 Catholics in Kosovo.
If Don Zefi has his way, there will be a lot more in future. On Christmas Eve some 38 people were baptised in a single town, Klina. Conversions to Christianity have become common (though a cautious Catholic church does not give precise figures). Don Zefi says he knows of large numbers more in “tens of villages” who want to convert.
The Catholic church is not the only one active in Kosovo. Since 1985, says Artur Krasniqi, a Protestant pastor, as many as 15,000 Kosovar Albanians have converted to Protestantism: 2,000 regularly attend church. He says that Kosovo, despite being nominally mostly Muslim, has “no religious identity”. But he worries about the rising influence of radical Muslims. Protestants, he complains, cannot get separate sections in cemeteries because the authorities do not want to provoke quarrels with local Muslims.
Full Article via The Economist
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