Pristina’s Mother Teresa Cathedral, currently larger than any mosque in the capital, stands at the intersection of Bill Clinton Boulevard and George Bush Street. Nearby is the residence of Kosovo’s Catholic bishop, Archbishop Dodë Gjergji. Dressed in simple black robes and with a wooden cross hanging from a silver chain, he awaits us for a conversation about the state of Kosovo’s Catholic community – a minority that makes up about 2 percent of the total population. More than 90 percent of Kosovo Albanians are registered Muslims, although the religion has little or no influence on the daily lives of the majority.
Among the topics of conversation is a phenomenon that has attracted international attention in recent years: the increase in conversions from Islam to Catholicism among Kosovo Albanians. Bishop Gjergji considers this process a natural return to the roots: “All Albanians have been Christians in the past,” he claims. Archaeological finds from the late Roman period testify to the presence of Christian churches in Kosovo.
According to the bishop, conversion to Islam began during the Ottoman occupation and occurred largely under pressure: “Accepting Islam was not a spiritual decision, but a way of survival.” He adds that, at that time, Christians paid higher taxes, had fewer rights in the courts, and were not allowed to build new churches. The British historian Noel Malcolm, in his standard work on the history of Kosovo, notes that many Christians converted to avoid the non-Muslim tax (jizyah), which was particularly burdensome to men.
In some cases, only the men converted while the women and girls remained Christians. He mentions a Catholic priest who, in 1651, wrote that the men of a village had told him: “We are Christians at heart, but we have changed our religion to avoid taxes.” The clergy of the time, according to Malcolm, secretly supported the preservation of Christianity: priests entered homes where women were still Christian and in this way offered services to the men of the family.
In many cases, entire communities lived officially as Muslims, but secretly maintained the Catholic faith. Archbishop Gjergji calls this phenomenon “crypto-Catholicism” and considers the current conversion process a “return” rather than an “abandonment” of the Islamic religion. He emphasizes that since Kosovo’s independence in 2008, many citizens have begun to ask themselves again about their religious and historical affiliation: “Why should we be Muslims, if this was not our original religion?”
However, the question that arises is: if returning to the roots is the goal, why don’t Albanians return to the pre-Christian polytheistic faith? The bishop responds that the historical distance is too great to restore such a faith. Regarding the reaction of Muslim leaders in Kosovo to the conversions, Archbishop Gjergji emphasizes that comparing Islam in Kosovo with more conservative versions in the Middle East is wrong. He underlines that in Kosovo’s political life, which is deeply secular, religion has no direct influence, and that no party that would propose the teaching of Sharia would succeed in the elections.
According to the bishop, the Catholic Church does not carry out missionary activities, but simply welcomes those who wish to “return.” He cites “several thousand” cases of baptism of former Muslims in recent years, including those in the diaspora. Father Ndue Kajtazi from Gjakova gives a more precise figure: around 3,500 conversions since the declaration of independence. In the Gjakova region, known as the historical heart of Albanian Catholicism in Kosovo, the percentage of Catholics reaches up to 20 percent, although emigration has significantly affected the reduction in numbers.
According to him, currently over half of the approximately 100,000 Catholics in Kosovo live abroad. Even the birth rate, which has fallen to 1.55 children per woman, affects Catholics and Muslims equally. Father Kajtazi fondly recalls the first baptism of converts in 2008 – a group of 36 people who lived as Catholics in their family circle. He himself has baptized about 60 “returnees”. “It is a beautiful and important story,” he says. “Baptism is the spiritual return to the religion we had before the arrival of the Ottoman Empire.”
The tragedy of the Marku family
Another testimony comes from Marijan Marku, a Catholic Albanian from the village of Korenica, near Gjakova. His family has always been Catholic. He tells the painful story of his mother, Paška, who, after the murder of her two sons during the 1999 war, decided to end her life. The bodies of Jovalim and Milan, missing for years, were found in a mass grave in Serbia and returned to be buried in Kosovo. This act ended all hope and prompted Paška to commit suicide on May 27, 2003.
This tragedy is part of the context of the largest massacre of the war in Kosovo, which occurred in April 1999 in Korenica and Meja, where Serbian forces killed over 350 Albanian men and boys in retaliation for a KLA attack. The bodies were dumped in mass graves and then secretly transferred to Serbia. In this context, some right-wing circles in Europe and the US have claimed that NATO “bombed the wrong side,” helping Muslim Albanians instead of Christian Serbs.
But this interpretation does not hold up: the victims of the greatest massacre were Catholic Albanians, European Christians, killed by professed Christians. When asked if Albanian Catholics felt safer because of their shared religious affiliation with Serbs, Marijan Marku replies bluntly: “We had seen what Milosevic had done to Catholic Croats.
Albanian Catholics were even more at risk, because they refuted the Serbian narrative that the war was between Islam and Christianity.”Father Kajtazi confirms this: “The Serbs told us that they had nothing to do with us Catholics, but that was a lie. In fact, they wanted to divide the Albanians.” He had warned the believers: “Don’t be fooled. You will simply be the last dish on the Serbian table.”
The massacre in Mejë and Korenica proved that he was right. Albanians in Kosovo were not killed because of religion – but because of their ethnicity.
References
Frankfurter Allgemeine ZeitungMichael Martens. https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/christentum-im-kosovo-serbiens-luege-vom-religionskrieg-110559717.html?
https://www.drini.us/krishterimi-ne-kosove-genjeshtrat-serbe-per-lufte-fetare/
