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 persons are Muslim — as the boys, ladies and kids standing earlier than him had been.
The ceremony was considered one of many in latest months in Kosovo, a previously Serbian territory inhabited largely by ethnic Albanians that declared itself an impartial state in 2008. In a census final spring, 93 % of the inhabitants professed itself Muslim and just one.75 % 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 non secular extremism spilling over from the Center East.
Till the Ottoman Empire conquered what’s right this moment Kosovo and different areas of the Balkans within the 14th century, bringing with it Islam, ethnic Albanians have 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 exterior the village of Llapushnik, ethnic Albanians can get better their unique id.
Ethnic Albanians, who hint their roots to an historic individuals referred to 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 befell, 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 Kolaj mentioned in an interview.
In lots of Muslim lands, renouncing Islam can carry extreme punishment, typically even demise. Up to now, the baptism ceremonies happening in Kosovo have stirred no violent opposition, although there have been some offended denunciations on-line. (It isn’t recognized what number of conversions have to this point 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 should always all turn into pagans” as a result of the individuals residing on the territory of right this moment’s Kosovo earlier than the arrival of Christianity and later Islam have been nonbelievers.
Like many different Kosovars, Mr. Abdullahu mentioned he believed that Serbia, which has a principally Orthodox Christian inhabitants, had helped stoke the return motion as a approach of sowing discord in Kosovo. Whereas Serbia has lengthy been accused of undermining Kosovo’s stability, there isn’t any 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 not less than a individuals maybe associated to them, have been Christians.
Nonetheless, Christophe Goddard, a French archaeologist working on the web site, mentioned it was unsuitable to impose trendy ideas of nation and ethnicity on historic peoples. “This isn’t historical past however trendy 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 mates however secretly celebrated Christmas at dwelling.
“We have been Muslims in the course of the day and Christians at evening,” 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 principally 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 saved their distance from Kosovo’s conversion marketing campaign. However some ethnic Albanians residing in Western Europe have supplied help, seeing a return to Catholicism as Kosovo’s finest hope of at some point coming 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 serious 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 growth tasks 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 warfare with Serbia. However Turkey is at present funding the development close by of a large new mosque that might be even greater.
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 another European nation.
Christianity, alternatively, would open a path to Europe, he mentioned.
A crackdown by the authorities lately has silenced extremism and strengthened 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 not too long ago 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 other than different peoples within the now vanished, multiethnic federal state of Yugoslavia, which disintegrated in the course of the Balkan wars of the early Nineties. The primary opponents within the early phases of the battle spoke a lot the identical language and appeared related however have been clearly distinguished from each other by faith — Serbs by Orthodox Christianity, Croats by Roman Catholicism and Bosnians by Islam.
Activists within the return motion consider that ethnic Albanians additionally must cement their nationwide loyalties with faith within the type of Roman Catholicism.
Boik Breca, a former Muslim energetic within the motion, insisted that the Catholic church shouldn’t 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. A lot of his fellow inmates have been Catholics, he recalled, and helped stir what he now sees as his true religion and a perception that “our ancestors have been all Catholics.”
“To be a real Albanian,” he mentioned, “it’s a must 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 in opposition to 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 not Muslims as of right this moment,” attendees mentioned, adopting the slogan: “To be solely Albanians.”
The assembly led to the formation of what was initially referred to 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, embellished 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.”