Catholicism
Albania once numbered eighteen episcopal Sees, some of them having uninterrupted activity from the dawn of the Catholicism until today. The country was the last Roman Catholic bridgehead in the Balkans.
For four centuries, the Catholic Albanians defended their faith, aided by Franciscan missionaries, beginning in the middle of the 17th century, when persecution by Ottoman Turkish lords in Albania started to result in the conversion of many villages to the Islamic faith, particularly among the Orthodox population.
The College of Propaganda at Rome played a significant role in the religious and moral support of the Albanian Catholics. During the 17 and 18 centuries, the College contributed in educating young clerics appointed to service on Albanian missions, as well as to the financial support of the churches. Work was done by the Austrian Government at the time, which offered significant financial aid in its role as Protector of the Christian community under Ottoman rule.
Church legislation of the Albanians was reformed by Clement XI, who convoked a general ecclesiastical visitation, held in 1763 by the Archbishop of Antivari, by the end of which a national synod was held. The decrees formulated by the Synod were printed by the College of Propaganda in 1705, and renewed in 1803. In 1872, Pius IX convoked a second national synod at Shkodër, for the revival of the popular and ecclesiastical life. Owing to Austrian interest in Albania, the institution of the Catholic bishops of Albania was obtained through a civil decree released by the Vilajet of Berat.
Albania was divided ecclesiastically into several archiepiscopal provinces:
- Antivari
Since 1878 part of the principality of Montenegro. Since 1886, without suffragan, separated from Scutari, with which it had been united in 1867 on equal terms.
- Scutari, with the suffragan Sees of Alessio, Pulati, Sappa and (since 1888) the Abbatia millius of St. Alexander of Orosci.
- Durazzo
- Uskup
The last two archiepiscopal provinces did not have any suffragans, and depended directly on the Holy See. A seminary, founded in 1858 by Archbishop Topich of Scutari, was destroyed by the Ottomans, but was later re-established on Austrian territory and placed under imperial protection.
Read more about this topic: Religion In Albania, History, Renaissance and Early Modern Period
Famous quotes containing the word catholicism:
“Protestantism has the method of Jesus with His secret too much left out of mind; Catholicism has His secret with His method too much left out of mind; neither has His unerring balance, His intuition, His sweet reasonableness. But both have hold of a great truth, and get from it a great power.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“When Catholicism goes bad it becomes the world-old, world-wide religio of amulets and holy places and priestcraft. Protestantism, in its corresponding decay, becomes a vague mist of ethical platitudes. Catholicism is accused of being too much like all the other religions; Protestantism of being insufficiently like a religion at all. Hence Plato, with his transcendent Forms, is the doctor of Protestants; Aristotle, with his immanent Forms, the doctor of Catholics.”
—C.S. (Clive Staples)