|
Religious Freedom Summary* (1997) The Law on Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms provides that "freedom of thought, conscience, and religion may not be violated." Citizens may freely change their religion or beliefs and may manifest them alone or in community with others, in public or in private life, and in worship, teaching, practice, and observance. The Government respects these provisions in practice. There is no law to control either violation of religious rights or so-called religious groups which may violate or abuse the rights of others. The majority of citizens are secular in orientation after decades of rigidly enforced atheism. Muslims, who make up the largest traditional religious group, adhere to a moderate form of Sunni Islam. The Albanian Autocephalous Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches are the other large denominations. The Albanian Orthodox Church split from the Greek Orthodox Church early in the century, and there is a strong identification with the national church as distinct from the Greek church. The current archbishop is a Greek citizen, even though the Albanian Orthodox Church's 1929 statute states that all its archbishops must be of Albanian heritage, because there are no Albanian clerics qualified for this position. Foreign clergy, including Muslim clerics, Christian and Ba'hai missionaries, Jehovah's Witnesses, and many others freely carry out religious activities. The Religious Council of the State Secretariat, an office that functions under the Prime Minister's authority, but has no clear mandate and is unable to make decisions on its own, estimates that there are 20 different Muslim societies and sects with around 95 representatives in country. There are more than 2,500 missionaries representing Christian or Ba'hai organizations. No religious missionaries have suffered any acts of violence or been arrested because they are missionaries. The government has not yet returned all lands and religious objects under its control that were confiscated under the Communist regime. Some warehouses in which church groups stored food and other basic commodities were seriously damaged and looted during the unrest. Each religion is slowly recovering old properties, but in cases where the sites or buildings were "cultural monuments protected by the state," the transfer of ownership continues to be problematic and slow. All major religious groups continue to complain of this slow pace of property return. *Source: County Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1997, U.S. Department of State |