Albanian Orthodox Church

The Albanian Orthodox Church is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church, and is the third-largest religious community in Albania, after Islam and Roman Catholicism. The church has an estimated 700,000 members, or about 20% of the Albanian population. It is believed to have been founded in the 1st century AD by the Apostle Paul. At the Council of Ephesus in 431, St Niketas of Remesiana mentioned the existence of Christian communities in the territory of modern-day Albania, indicating an early Christian presence. In the centuries that followed, Albania came under Byzantine influence and was part of the Byzantine Empire. The Christianisation of the Albanian population continued, and the Orthodox faith became firmly established. The church has been through many periods of persecution and hardship over the centuries. It was persecuted by the Ottoman Empire from the 15th to the 19th centuries, and in the 20th century, by the communist government of Albania. The church is distinctive for its use of the Albanian language in liturgical services. It was one of the first Orthodox churches to adopt the vernacular language in its worship, rather than relying solely on Greek or Church Slavonic.