Home; Religion; the explainer Inside Albania's planned Muslim microstate. Proposal for 'Sovereign State of the Bektashi Order', a Vatican-style enclave, has sparked confusion, praise and heated debate ...

Albanians and world religious leaders also attended the funeral service. "It should be said without doubt that Anastasios ...

The Albanian Muslim Vatican would remind the world that Islam is far from monolithic and many interpretations of the religion coexist peacefully, as they should.

MARX: And under the new plans that the Albanian prime minister recently proposed, Baba Mondi could soon - like the pope - become the head of a small religious state, almost an Albanian version of ...

Prime Minister Edi Rama says he wants to give members of the Bektashi, a Shiite Sufi order, their own Vatican-style enclave as a way of promoting religious tolerance.

What isn’t in dispute is the religion’s widespread popularity in Albania, enjoying good relations with Catholics (8.4% of Albanians), Orthodox Christians (7.2%), and orthodox Muslims (45.9%).

Many Albanian recipes have a religious root. This was frowned upon under communism, especially after 1967, when authoritarian ruler Enver Hoxha banned all religious practices.

Albania is the only country in the world where religion has ever been banned by law. For nearly a quarter of a century, the communist dictator Enver Hoxha waged a war against religion. From 1967 until ...

Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian prime minister, Albin Kurti, in an interview in Pristina, played down the importance of religion to Albanian identity. “For us, religions came and went but we are ...

Thousands of Albanians gathered in the capital to pay their last respects to Archbishop Anastasios, ... All forms of religion were banned in Albania for almost 50 years from the the mid-1940's, ...

TIRANA, Albania (AP) ... All forms of religion were banned in Albania for 23 years from 1967, when the country was completely isolated from the outside world.