Different faiths mix together after hard times in Albania

On an Albanian spring day, dozens of Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox Christians toil together up a steep, winding slope to St Anthony’s church – different faiths all hoping for a miracle.

Some of the pilgrims heading up the stoney path to the imposing church are barefoot and wedge their feet into cracks in rocks believed to have powers, including protection against disease.

Others collect five white stones along the way and, in accordance with tradition, whisper to each before placing it back on the ground.

Ilir, a young Orthodox Christianity engineer, rubs his wallet on a rock, hoping for prosperity. “I have come to pray to God for my prayers to be granted this year,” he confides.

Catholic mother-of-two Mir is praying St Anthony will save her marriage. “I have problems with my husband,” murmurs the young lawyer.

“I come to ask God to give me a son this year,” says Servete, a Muslim who has travelled to Lac, some 50 kilometres north of the capital Tirana, from Durres further west.

On their slow march up the hill, the pilgrims pass a cave where legend says St Anthony slept; some leave clothing belonging to their children or sick loved ones needing a cure.

The popular weekly pilgrimage is testament to the survival in Albania of a strong religious faith despite efforts of the 1945-1990 communist dictatorship to mercilessly root it out.

Repression and international isolation under the militantly atheistic regime, which banned all forms of religious expression, has today forged an original mix of faith, superstition, folklore and tolerance.

The majority of Albania’s population of almost three million is Muslim but there are strong Orthodox and Catholic minorities too.

The different faiths tend to worship at the same places and people sometimes switch religions for convenience – which would shock many in less tolerant societies.

Here, God is the “same for the Catholics, the Orthodox and the Muslims,” anthropologist Aferdita Onuzi said. “All believe in a miracle that could change their life.”

With the communist dictatorship banning all religious practices in the country, sociologist Artan Fuga said: “Believers who could not practise their faith freely went to look for the divine where they could find it ... also using sacred places or objects from animist and pagan beliefs.”

In an example, thousands of Albanians of all faiths come together each August on Tomorri mountain in the south of the country to honour both a pagan sun cult and the religious practices of an Islamic Sufi order, the Bektashi.

“Common attendance by Muslims and Christians to the places of worship is a widespread phenomenon in Albania,” said Besnik Mustafaj of the non-government Forum of Alliance of Civilisations.

Marriages between Muslims and Christians are frequent and many Albanians are at a loss to say which religion they practise.

Confusing perhaps, but it also explains Albania’s religious tolerance, says prominent writer Ismail Kadare, a precious commodity in religiously fraught time. “Cohabitation between the religions is peaceful,” he says. This blending of religious practices, or syncretism, was strong in areas once ruled by the Ottoman Empire, like Albania, says British historian Mark Mazower in his book The Balkans.

At the time, Christians collected “sacred earth” from around mosques or Muslim tekkes, or mausoleums.

It is another tradition that survives today with Muslims and Christians praying together at a tekke in honour of dervish Hatixhe in Tirana at the start of every year.