The Catholic priest stood on the altar within the hilltop church for the mass baptism, dunking dozens of heads in water and tracing a cross along with his finger on every brow.
Then he rejoiced at Christianity’s restoration of souls in a land the place the overwhelming majority of individuals are Muslim — as the lads, ladies and youngsters standing earlier than him had been.
The ceremony was certainly one of many in latest months in Kosovo, a previously Serbian territory inhabited largely by ethnic Albanians that declared itself an unbiased state in 2008. In a census final spring, 93 p.c of the inhabitants professed itself Muslim and only one.75 p.c Roman Catholic.
A small variety of ethnic Albanian Christian activists, all converts from Islam, are urging their ethnic kin to look to the church as an expression of their id. They name it the “return motion,” a push to revive a pre-Islamic previous they see as an anchor of Kosovo’s place in Europe and a barrier to spiritual extremism spilling over from the Center East.
Till the Ottoman Empire conquered what’s immediately Kosovo and different areas of the Balkans within the 14th century, bringing with it Islam, ethnic Albanians had been primarily Catholics. Beneath Ottoman rule, which lasted till 1912, most of Kosovo’s individuals switched faiths.
By reversing that course of, mentioned Father Fran Kolaj, the priest who carried out the baptisms outdoors the village of Llapushnik, ethnic Albanians can get well their unique id.
Ethnic Albanians, who hint their roots to an historic individuals known as the Illyrians, reside primarily in Albania, a rustic on the Adriatic Sea. However in addition they make up a big majority of the inhabitants in neighboring Kosovo and greater than 1 / 4 of the inhabitants in North Macedonia.
On the church the place the baptisms happened, nationalist emblems jostle with non secular iconography. The double-headed eagle image of Albania decorates the steeple and likewise a display screen behind the altar.
“It’s time for us to return to the place the place we belong — with Christ,” Father Fran Kolaj mentioned in an interview.
In lots of Muslim lands, renouncing Islam can deliver extreme punishment, generally even dying. To this point, the baptism ceremonies going down in Kosovo have stirred no violent opposition, although there have been some offended denunciations on-line. (It’s not recognized what number of conversions have thus far taken place.)
However historians, who agree that Christianity was current in Kosovo lengthy earlier than the Ottoman Empire introduced Islam, query the pondering behind the motion.
“From a historic perspective what they are saying is true,” mentioned Durim Abdullahu, a historian on the College of Pristina. However, he added, “their logic implies that we must always all grow to be pagans” as a result of the individuals residing on the territory of immediately’s Kosovo earlier than the arrival of Christianity and later Islam had been nonbelievers.
Like many different Kosovars, Mr. Abdullahu mentioned he believed that Serbia, which has a largely Orthodox Christian inhabitants, had helped stoke the return motion as a means of sowing discord in Kosovo. Whereas Serbia has lengthy been accused of undermining Kosovo’s stability, there isn’t a proof it has been selling the conversions.
Archaeologists in 2022 uncovered the stays of a sixth-century Roman church close to Pristina, and in 2023 discovered a mosaic with an inscription indicating that early Albanians, or a minimum of a individuals maybe associated to them, had been Christians.
Nonetheless, Christophe Goddard, a French archaeologist working on the website, mentioned it was improper to impose fashionable ideas of nation and ethnicity on historic peoples. “This isn’t historical past however fashionable politics,” he mentioned.
Traces of Kosovo’s distant pre-Islamic previous additionally survived in a small variety of households that clung to Roman Catholicism regardless of the danger of being ostracized by their Muslim neighbors.
Marin Sopi, 67, a retired Albanian language trainer who was baptized 16 years in the past, mentioned his household had been “closet Catholics” for generations. In childhood, he recalled, he and his household noticed Ramadan with Muslim associates however secretly celebrated Christmas at house.
“We had been Muslims through the day and Christians at night time,” he mentioned. Since popping out as a Christian, he mentioned, 36 members of his prolonged household have formally deserted Islam.
Islam and Christianity in Kosovo largely coexisted in peace — till Orthodox Christian troopers and nationalist paramilitary gangs from Serbia started torching mosques and expelling Muslims from the houses within the Nineties.
International Christian missionaries have stored their distance from Kosovo’s conversion marketing campaign. However some ethnic Albanians residing in Western Europe have provided assist, seeing a return to Catholicism as Kosovo’s greatest hope of sooner or later getting into the European Union, a largely Christian membership.
Arber Gashi, an ethnic Albanian residing in Switzerland, traveled to Kosovo to attend the baptism ceremony on the church in Llapushnik, which overlooks the scene of a significant battle in 1998 between Serb forces and the Kosovo Liberation Military.
He and different activists fear that funding for mosque-building and different actions from Turkey and nations within the Center East like Qatar and Saudi Arabia, with their extra conservative approaches, threatens Kosovo’s historically laid-back type of Islam. Most of this cash has gone into financial improvement initiatives unrelated to faith.
The middle of Pristina has a statue honoring Mom Teresa, the Catholic nun and Nobel Peace Prize laureate of Albanian descent, and is dominated by a big Roman Catholic cathedral constructed after the struggle with Serbia. However Turkey is at the moment funding the development close by of a large new mosque that will probably be even larger.
Mr. Gashi additionally mentioned that he feared a return of the Islamic extremism that emerged in Kosovo’s first, chaotic decade of independence. By some counts, Kosovo supplied extra recruits to the Islamic State in Syria than some other European nation.
Christianity, alternatively, would open a path to Europe, he mentioned.
A crackdown by the authorities in recent times has silenced extremism and bolstered Kosovo’s historically relaxed tackle Islam. The streets of Pristina are lined with bars serving a variety of alcohol. Veiled ladies are extraordinarily uncommon.
Gezim Gjin Hajrullahu, 57, a trainer who was amongst these baptized lately in Llapushnik, mentioned he had joined the Catholic church “not for the sake of faith itself” however for the “sake of our nationwide id” as ethnic Albanians. His spouse additionally transformed.
Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian prime minister, Albin Kurti, in an interview in Pristina, performed down the significance of faith to Albanian id. “For us, religions got here and went however we’re nonetheless right here,” he mentioned. “For Albanians, when it comes to id, faith was by no means of first significance.”
That units them aside from different peoples within the now vanished, multiethnic federal state of Yugoslavia, which disintegrated through the Balkan wars of the early Nineties. The principle opponents within the early phases of the battle spoke a lot the identical language and seemed related however had been clearly distinguished from one another by faith — Serbs by Orthodox Christianity, Croats by Roman Catholicism and Bosnians by Islam.
Activists within the return motion consider that ethnic Albanians additionally have to cement their nationwide loyalties with faith within the type of Roman Catholicism.
Boik Breca, a former Muslim lively within the motion, insisted that the Catholic church will not be an alien intrusion however the true expression of Albanian id and proof that Kosovo belongs in Europe.
He mentioned his curiosity in Christianity started when Kosovo, together with Serbia, was nonetheless a part of Yugoslavia. He was despatched to jail off the coast of Croatia as a political prisoner. Lots of his fellow inmates had been Catholics, he recalled, and helped stir what he now sees as his true religion and a perception that “our ancestors had been all Catholics.”
“To be a real Albanian,” he mentioned, “you need to be Christian.”
This view is broadly disputed, together with by Mr. Kurti, the prime minister.
“I don’t purchase that,” he mentioned.
The present push towards Islam started with a gathering in October 2023 in Decani, a bastion of nationalist sentiment close to Kosovo’s border with Albania. The gathering, attended by nationalist intellectuals and former Kosovo Liberation Military fighters, mentioned methods to advertise “Albanian-ness” and determined that Christianity would assist.
“We’re now not Muslims as of immediately,” attendees said, adopting the slogan: “To be solely Albanians.”
The assembly led to the formation of what was initially known as the Motion for the Abandonment of the Islamic Religion, a provocative title since largely dropped in favor of the “Motion of Return.”
From his workplace in Pristina, adorned with a mannequin of Mecca, Kosovo’s grand mufti, Naim Ternava, has watched the return motion with nervousness and dismay. The push for Muslims to modify to Christianity, he mentioned, risked disrupting non secular concord and was being utilized by “overseas brokers to unfold hatred of Islam.”
“Our mission,” he added, “is to maintain individuals in our faith. I inform individuals to stay in Islam.”