Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 1.djvu/292

ALBANIA customs and a primitive manner of life, practise their religion devoutly. The purity of their morals is proverbial throughout the Balkan peninsula, and the zealous Austrian and Italian missionaries have met with conditions most favourable for their teaching. Schools have been opened in all the villages of note by Franciscan and Jesuit Fathers, but the spread of education is hindered by the lack of a gramatically organized language. Many attempts have been made to decide upon an alphabet, but none has yet succeeded owing to the difficulty of expressing the oral sounds by any known combination of European letters. A cultured Albanian, therefore, takes Roumanian, Greek, Servian, or Italian, for his medium of intercommunication. An Albanian journal is published in Bukarest and another in Belgrade. In the country itself there is no attempt at a newspaper, and the periodicals most prevalent in the towns are Italian publications of a religious tone. The tribes which have resisted Mussulman rule successfully and retained their creed have, notwithstanding this, adopted many Moslem customs.

.—For four centuries the Catholic Albanians have defended their faith with bravery, greatly aided by the Franciscan missionaries, especially since the middle of the seventeenth century, when the cruel persecutions of their Mussulman lords began to bring about the apostasy of many villages, particularly among the schismatic Greeks. The College of Propoganda at Rome was especially prominent in the religious and moral support of the Albanian Catholics. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, particularly, it educated young clerics for service on the Albanian missions, contributed then as now to their support and to that of the churches, in which good work it is aided by the Austrian Government, which gives yearly to those missions about five thousand dollars, in its quality of Protector of the Christian community under Turkish rule. The Church legislation of the Albanians was reformed by Clement XI, who caused a general ecclesiastical visitation to be held (1763) by the Archbishop of Antivari, at the close of which a national synod was held. Its decrees were printed by Propaganda (1705), and renewed in 1803 (Coll. Lucensis Conc. Recent., I, 283 sq.). In 1872, Pius IX caused a second national synod to be held at Scutari, for the renovation of the popular and ecclesiastical life. Apropos of the Austrian interest in Albania, it may be stated that it is the Austrian ambassador who obtains from the Sultan the Berat, or civil document of institution for the Catholic bishops of Albania (Neber, in K. L., XI, 18, 19).

Albania is divided ecclesiastically into several archiepiscopal provinces: (1) Antivari (since 1878 a part of the principality of Montenegro ; since 1886, without suffragans, and separated from Scutari, with which it had been united in 1867 on terms of equality); (2) Scutari, with the suffragan Sees of Alessio, Pulati, Sappa and (since 1888) the Abbatia millius of St. Alexander of Orosci; (3) Durazzo; (4) Uskup. The latter two are without suffragans, and depend immediately on the Holy See. A seminary, founded in 1858 by Archbishop Topich of Scutari, was destroyed by the Turks, but was later re­-established on Austrian territory and placed under the imperial protection. In Scutari the Catholic women, as well as the Mohammedan, go veiled. The Albanian woman works unceasingly in the field and in the home; so that every household care devolves upon her in the frequent absence of the men who are either regular or irregular fighters in the Albanian or Turko­-Albanian bands. The women are dressed in tight skirts of light colour striped with black, and their heads and shoulders are covered on feast days with masses of gold and silver coins. In the Catholic churches, the women appear unveiled, and the humbler class generally remove their shoes at the entrance. The service in the Cathedral of Scutari is most impressive, although primitive to an extreme degree. There is little quiet, for the congregation rasps out the responses with a fervour that precludes either modulation or rhythm, and the incessant rattle of the coins on the women's breasts and heads as they bend forward and again kneel upright accompanies every intonation. The scarlet colour predominates in the altar decorations, as well as in the clothes of the worshippers. It is impossible to witness the attitude of the Catholic Albanian at worship and remain unmoved at his simple, whole­-hearted demonstration of living faith. The admirable work of the friars in dispelling the old vendetta custom is one of the chief factors in the evolution of this semi­-barbaric race. The Albanians of to­-day give the same promise of a vigorous Christian development as the Franks of the time of Clovis, and it is characteristic of their steadfastness that no bribes or threats have succeeded in drawing them from their first allegiance. While every other race in the Balkans, with the exception of the Western Serbs, called Hroats (Croats), went over to schism, the Roman Catholic faith remained secure in the fastnesses of northern Albania.

When one recalls that to adopt Islamism meant to become a lord and a recognized warrior, while to remain Christian meant to become a slave, deprived of the right to carry weapons, it is easily seen why so many Albanian tribes fell away. The chief tribes of Upper Albania, the Shoshi and the Mirdites, are at once the pioneers of nationality and Catholicity. Long ago the Mirdites were wont to carry off Turkish girls of good family and, after baptizing them, made them their wives, so that there is a strong strain of Turkish blood in the Catholic Mirdites of to­day. This tribe has special privileges, such as the place of honour in the Sultan's army under the command of its own chieftain. In accepting a comradeship of arms with Mussulman troops it guards the creed and nationality with the same fidelity with which it serves the Sultan when called upon. The Mirdites, about 40,000 in number, and with a chief town of some four hundred houses, Orosci, treat on equal terms with the Porte. The force of circumstances has driven the Albanian into fierce espousal of one or other of the causes which are being periodically fought out between antagonists whose success or defeat leaves his own condition almost unchanged. It was an Albanian who led the Greeks in the War of Independence, and again an Albanian who commanded the Turkish troops sent to quell the rebellion. The Kings of Naples kept an Albanian regiment styled the Royal Macedonian, and the famous resistance of Silistria in 1854 is due to dogged Albanian bravery. Courage and heroism are inborn qualities of this singular and gifted race. The revival of the national aspirations of Albania dates from the Congress of Berlin (1878), when Austria, in order to compensate Servia and Montenegro for her retention of the Servian lands of Bosnia and Herzegovina, thought to divide the land of Albania between them. The Turks secretly fostered the opposition of both Mussulmans and Catholics, and the Albanian League was formed "for the maintenance of the country's integrity and the reconstitution of its independence". The territories alloted to Servia were already occupied by her troops when resistance broke forth, and the idea of dislodging them had to be abandoned; but Montenegro was unable to obtain possession of her share, the rich districts of Gusinie and Plava. The Albanians, undaunted by the unexpected opposition of their former allies, the Turks, now forced by Russia to assist Montenegro, made face against all their enemies with a