. All other ideologies, beliefs, cultures, and thoughts were
banned from the country's schools.

RELIGION

Situation Before the Communist Takeover

One of the major legacies of nearly five centuries of Ottoman rule was
the conversion of over 70 percent of the population to Islam. When
independence came, therefore, the country emerged as a predominantly
Muslim nation, the only Islamic state in Europe. No censuses taken by
the Communist regime since it assumed power in 1944 have shown the
religious affiliations of the people. It has been estimated that of a
total population of 1,180,500, at the end of World War II, about 826,000
were Muslims, 212,500 Eastern Orthodox, and 142,000 Roman Catholics. The
Muslims were divided between adherents of the Sunni branch and over
200,000 followers of a dervish order known as Bektashi, an offshoot of
the Shia branch.

Christianity was introduced early in Albania, having been brought in
during the period of Roman rule. After the division of the Roman Empire
into East and West in 395, Albania became politically a part of the
Eastern, or Byzantine, Empire but remained ecclesiastically dependent on
Rome. When, however, the final schism occurred in 1054 between the Roman
and Eastern churches, the Christians in the southern part of the country
came under the jurisdiction of the Constantinople Ecumenical
Patriarchate. This situation prevailed until the Turkish invasions of
the fourteenth century, when the Islamic faith was introduced. The
apostasy of the people took many decades.

In the mountainous north the propagation of Islam met strong resistance
from the Catholics. Gradually, however, backwardness, illiteracy, the
absence of an educated clergy, and material inducements weakened
resistance. Coerced conversions occurred, especially when Catholic
powers, such as the Venetian Republic and Austria, were at war with the
Ottoman Empire. By the close of the seventeenth century the Catholics in
the north were outnumbered by the Muslims.

Large-scale forced conversions among the Orthodox in the south did not
occur until the Russo-Turkish wars of the eighteenth century. Islamic
pressure was put on the Orthodox Christians because the Turks considered
them sympathetic to Orthodox Russia. The situation of the Orthodox
improved temporarily after a Russo-Turkish treaty of 1774 in which
Russia was recognized as the protector of the Orthodox Christians in the
Ottoman Empire. The most effective m