Ban on religion forced Albanians to pray in secret: one woman's story
TIRANA, Albania (CNS) -- Almost every evening at 6, the sounds of the organ resonate in the brick Catholic church on Kavaja Street. The hymns may vary, but the organist, Maria Dhimitri, is always the same. It has been that way for nearly 23 years and could have been double that, Dhimitri said in a recent interview, if it had not been for a brutally enforced ban on religion in her country in southeastern Europe from 1967 to 1990. "They banned all religious practice," the 76-year-old musician told Catholic News Service from an annex of Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Her smile belied the "long" and "painful suffering" that she agreed to talk about one recent Saturday in April. "They said God didn't exist. I couldn't come to church or pray or speak of God at all," she said of the communist regime that came to power in her country soon after World War II. The regime made worshipping increasingly difficult and finally imposed a ban on religion in the country in 1967, making Albania the first and only constitutionally atheist state. Dhimitri was teaching piano at one of the country's top conservatories for music in the capital, Tirana, and was married with two small children when the ban went into effect.
TIRANA, Albania (CNS) -- Almost every evening at 6, the sounds of the organ resonate in the brick Catholic church on Kavaja Street. The hymns may vary, but the organist, Maria Dhimitri, is always the same. It has been that way for nearly 23 years and could have been double that, Dhimitri said in a recent interview, if it had not been for a brutally enforced ban on religion in her country in southeastern Europe from 1967 to 1990. "They banned all religious practice," the 76-year-old musician told Catholic News Service from an annex of Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Her smile belied the "long" and "painful suffering" that she agreed to talk about one recent Saturday in April. "They said God didn't exist. I couldn't come to church or pray or speak of God at all," she said of the communist regime that came to power in her country soon after World War II. The regime made worshipping increasingly difficult and finally imposed a ban on religion in the country in 1967, making Albania the first and only constitutionally atheist state. Dhimitri was teaching piano at one of the country's top conservatories for music in the capital, Tirana, and was married with two small children when the ban went into effect.