Despite their small number, the Bektashis are set to form the world’s newest country — a first-of-its-kind Islamic microstate ...

The creation of a religious state in Albania would have been unimaginable during the four decade communist dictatorship of Enver Hoxha who banned religion outright and persecuted clerics and priests.

All forms of religion were banned in Albania for 23 years starting in 1967, when the country was completely isolated from the outside world and the communists seized the property of Islamic ...

He was secretly baptized in 1979 by priest Kosmas Kyrios, who later became the bishop of Apollonia. All forms of religion were banned in Albania for 23 years starting in 1967, when the country was ...

when Albania was declared the world’s first “atheist state”. Orthodoxy is a minority belief in the mainly Muslim country. Roughly 7 per cent of the population of 2.4 million consists of ...

All forms of religion were banned in Albania for 23 years starting in 1967, when the country was completely isolated from the outside world and the communists seized the property of Islamic ...