ALBANIA

ALBANIA. The origin of the Albanians is a matter of conjecture and debate. Some hold that they stem from the inhabitants of Roman Illyria (q.v.) before the Slavic invasions of the 6th c., but this does not enjoy universal acceptance. They were subjected to the Byzantines and Orthodoxy (840) and later to the Slavs. From the 14th c. to the 16th c., Albania resisted the Turks and divided its Christian allegiance between Orthodoxy and Rome (qq.v.). Through persecution and favoritism, the Turks encouraged the population to accept Islam (q.v.). The country became independent in 1913 and its Orthodox Church became autocephalous (q.v.) in 1922. At present, approximately 20 percent of the population is Orthodox Christian-or at least of Orthodox background. The Church in Albania was under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch (q.v.) until achieving administrative independence in 1937, but the depredations of the regime of Enver Hoxa and his successors, in power from the end of World War II until the beginning of the 1990s, effected the official and total rejection of all forms of religious belief. The post-Hoxa era has seen the reestablishment of the church under Archbishop Anasatasios (Yannoulatos) (q.v.) with the assistance of the Ecumenical Patriarch.