Albanian Catholics are descendents of those who embraced the Faith in the early centuries A.D. And they held to the Faith through 400 years of Ottoman rule and, more recently, an extreme totalitarian regime that became the world’s first atheist state.
All this oppression has impacted the religious demographics. But, through crushing hardship, Catholicism endured in parts of this small Balkan nation of less than 3 million persons.
Due to the Ottoman influence, Albania is a majority-Muslim nation, though not a vast majority. About 9% of the general population is Catholic (both Roman and Eastern rites), and a slightly smaller number is Orthodox Catholic. Additionally, there are significant numbers of persons who do not follow any religion.
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