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Regarding the religious demographics as per the 2011 census

There are some serious issues regarding the religious demographics of Albania as presented by the 2011 census. The threefold decrease of the orthodox community can be only an artificial one , and the evangelicals/protestants are greatly underreported. The empirical data is clearly pointing towards to a census manipulation. Per example only 1 protestant church in Tirana is having around 6000 followers on its facebook page which is more than the total percentage given for the evangelicals/protestants in the 2011 census for the whole Albania , there are around 30-40 protestant churches in Tirana alone and many of them have followers in excess of 2000 people. The orthodox community as per the 2011 census appears to have decreased by an impossible 300 % when the catholics per example have the same percentage vis a vis the last census where religion was included ... thus this alone should show that this is not a pan christian phenomenon. The orthodox church has officialy denied to recognize the census , and some days prior to its publication there were reports in the media alluding to the fact that the religious composition of the country was different from its muslim majority legacy. Anecdotal evidences ( such as how big the masses are for easter ) show a more than twofold dominance of the orthodox community vis a vis the catholic one ... this suggests a more than (2 x 10.08 % = 20.16 % ) percentage as of the total population of Albania. I am writting this as an intro which will serve our discussion in producing a consensus , sources will be presented in the following comments. Given the magnitute and the divergence of the 2011 census percentages compared to reality it is only logical that these issues get the merited attention in the demographics section. Gjirokastra15 (talk) 09:45, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Do you have a Reliable Source that disputes the official census numbers?50.111.33.130 (talk) 17:19, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Regarding both the Bektashi and Orthodox percentages, there is a whole host of sources discussing how the number is much lower than it should be. These are on this page currently, and elsewhere. While there is less discussion of this, the same is true of atheists, and there was the odd fact that the preliminary results showed 70% not declaring a religion, but somehow this changed when the final results were results were released drastically to only 16%. It should be noted however that is true that populations of Bektashi and Orthodox origin are more secularized than Sunni and Catholic populations (see Irreligion in Albania for details on this), because there are more irreligious people in the South of Albania than the North. As for the Catholics, the Catholic church does not dispute the results, nor do any other sources for the Catholics that I'm aware of. Also, this is plain OR from me, but it is easy to find Albanians who are not Muslim but know that is how they were counted on the census because of their last names (some Christians have Muslim last names due to either mixing or Ottoman times, and many people of all backgrounds are in fact atheist)-- one atheist miscounted as a Muslim (I'm not talking about myself) edits this wiki, in fact.--Calthinus (talk) 18:17, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

I added the opinion of a European Council report which criticizes the census results and the Gallup poll from 2016 to give e better picture of the religious situation in Albania. I should also mention that the Albanian Catholics openly criticized the results. The 2011 census is widely contested, so I think we should use other sources is possible. Vargmali (talk) 10:08, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Thought i would to the mix that during the later part of the communist era, the Orthodox in comparison to other religious communities in Albania had a lower birth rate (Clayer, p. 6 [1]) and also that a sizable part of the community permanently emigrated to Greece. Older generations that made up the community are also passing away. Also conversion rates to Orthodoxy by Muslims has been debatable inside and outside Albania, -due to the authenticity of their conversions being viewed by traditional Orthodox believers and even among those who are doing the converting as for mainly purposes of gaining access to the Greek market (Kretsi [2] -there is more sources on this, for now it will do as i have other stuff to do at the moment). Best.Resnjari (talk) 14:28, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

There is nothing to suggest that only the orthodox have emigrated, and according to INSTAT there are no significant differences in the TFR (total fertility rate ) throughout the country. In fact the vast majority of those that emigrated to Greece belong (nominally) to the muslim faith , my family included - although myself i identify as an evangelical -. Gjirokastra15 (talk) 18:19, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Muslims have migrated in sizable numbers and that is accounted for in scholarship. With the Orthodox toward the latter part of the communist era their numbers shrunk somewhat due to the birthrate vis a vis the other religious communities and coupled with post-1992 migration resulted in a more quicker decline. This decline was sort of evident even in the census done right after WW2 which Czekalski cites (p.120) [3] "The census of 1945 showed that the vast majority of society (72%) were Muslims, 17.2% of the population declared themselves to be Orthodox, and 10% Catholics." It was already down by 3% from the usual touted number of 20%. In a 2015 study by Miller and Johnstone they cited a figure of 13,000 people in Albania [4] who were from a Muslim background that had converted to Christianity. Their study did not state though which Christian denominations they had converted to. Even so 13,000 during the post-communist era (and some that converted to access the Greek work market) is not big as often many of the people live in urban centres where communities dominate religious numbers resulting in little impact or them permanently migrating. The main rise has been those not declaring a religion (whether its due to them doing so as a protest against the census that time for they said was patriotic like reasons or them being actually irreligious). There are a few other issues with the census. Many places that did not declare a religion in Albania were places that traditionally had a Muslim population like the mountainous interior of Kurvelesh or parts of Mallakster, Cermenike in the north etc. Most areas known for having had a traditional population of Orthodox did declare in the census, as did the Catholics. So its complicated, some religious communities have not come to terms with demographic declines of past decades and have reacted differently vis a vis society which also holds its own views. Next census if similar results are borne out then porbably then can the 2011 results have some more backing. Calthinus has done a whole heap of maps that show that data from the census and can be compared to previous data. Best.Resnjari (talk) 18:48, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Yeah I should add, a lot of the areas that had low rates of responses were "Muslim" but these (except for Gramsh) were almost always Bektashi areas. Cermenika was traditionally heavily Bektashis, Mallakastra also a Bektashi stronghold along with Halvetis; Kurvelesh proper (the municipality not the ethnographic region which is more Bektashi) is more Halveti but it actually had a high rate of religious responses, not a low one. There is a long-running pattern where Bektashi areas, being 15-25% of the country in teh early 1900s, had either large numbers of nonreligious responses or "Muslim" ones, so that the only "Bektashi" dominated areas were in the historically practically 100% Bektashi Skrapar and a couple municipalities around Bulqiza which is also a stronghold. Elsewhere the decline in Bektashis is tremendous, going down to 2% nationally. Of course there are possible explanations for this but still the criticism leveled on the census by Bektashis has been pretty salient. As for the Catholics personally I can't see any area (did tons of maps) that I can point to and recognize a decrease but that's my OR, if the Catholics criticized it too, sure I guess it goes on the page. As for the Orthodox, a lot of them acknowledge issues like that but the birth rate issue is not really a huge difference and it's more regional than religious- the Northeast which is mostly Muslim (and some Catholics and Bektashis) has birthrates slightly above replacement (parts of Catholic Lezhe probably do too), but the rest of the country, including the center where the overwhelming majority of Muslims actually live, has below replacement birthrates. On a regional basis the Orthodox do also have some basis to their complaints-- Albanian media has pointed out the mysterious disappearance of large numbers of people from Orthodox-heavy Myzeqe, and polls of Orthodox believers in urban centers (where most live) showed that the majority weren't even contacted. Of course its' also fair to note that Orthodox and Bektashis, as southerners, are more secularized than (Sunni) Muslims and Catholics so part of the loss of their numbers can be traced to the growth of irreligion especially among the young -- but this can't explain the reports of many people not even being contacted.--Calthinus (talk) 19:07, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Many people declared they were not contacted and many of them just lied. Many took part on the orchestrated circus that is repeated every time something important happens in Albania. The census had some problems but was generally successful in showing the situation of population in Albania. The Orthodox in Albania are as many as census showed or probably something less. Many religious people were not contacted, many atheists were incorrectly counted as religious people, and many public personalities asked common people to not declare their religion. The problems of census were mostly not caused by gov but by some certain religious institutions who can not accept that numbers of their followers are shrinking and some public figures who wanted to gain some more minutes on TV by making false misrepresentations of process. I want to remind editors that this website is not intended to serve as a forum and the person who opened this discussion is the same one who blamed problems of Albania on Muslims some time ago. Ktrimi991 (talk) 19:34, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I suggest that you focus your energies on enriching the article of ISIS & kosovo ( as shown by your contributions history ) , rather than making non based accusations. This section of wikipedia serves by default as a forum where editors discuss about certain things that are relevant to the article of Albania. Gjirokastra15 (talk) 20:25, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

@Gjirokastra15, we have had in past times some uncomfortable conversations about religion (i don't want to rehash all that -but others may have seen it, as they have commented on my talkpage hence their view). From time when those comments were said on my talkpage i am of the view of let bygones be bygones. As editors here lets just focus on making the Albanian wiki project better and getting rid of some of the POV lingering around still. Best.Resnjari (talk) 21:15, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Gjirokastra15 Whoa, this discussion is going in a bad direction. Normally I don't think FORUM is more than a misdemeanor, but like maybe we should put the brakes on this one. It's not a good idea to bring up ISIS, Gjiro, as no one talked about ISIS here and it isn't really relevant to Albania in any way except histrionics. At the very best, people will misinterpret what you said and think you hate Muslims, and I recommend you clear that up immediately. Also my apologies to Ktrimi991 as I have (like.... pretty much every one else here, to be fair) violated WP:FORUM, guilty as accused. We all have our own personal POVs and that's all fine and good and I respect everyone else here, though I don't agree with anyone but myself. As for the page all we can report is that... well, literally every major community, including even the Muslims and Catholics, has challenged the census and atheist groups have taken issue with it as well. That's all we can say, all the weighing is speculation and sources on how many Albanians of Muslim descent converted to Orthodoxy in Greece, birthrates etc etc should go on other pages as this is the country page and religious demographics is a small part. --Calthinus (talk) 21:26, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

Hello there Resnjari! My comment was about the the whole conduct of the census, and not just about Orthodox numbers. The census was plagued by massive issues from simple infrastructure to the conduct of the census takers. We have reports of people not being asked about contacted at all by the census takers, the census takers not asking the religion or even filling out the questions themselves. On a personal note, most atheist/irreligious people I know were counted as religious since they would be asked "Are you a Christian/Muslim?" as if the option of being irreligious or another religion did not exist. Also and in many cases they reported receiving a hostile response by the census takers when they would say atheist. As for the Orthodox now, it is true they had a lower birthrate then the Muslims and emigration hitting them harder, the issue of conversion to Orthodox Christianity is not debated about it actually happening. Particularly Albanians form "Muslim background" (a term I find problematic for post-Communist Albanians) who immigrated to Greece were prone to convert for a number of reasons, including social pressure. The practice is so widespread that people like even the Metropolitan of Elbasan, Andon Merdani and Miron Çako, an important theologian are from this background. One thing one should also consider is that the Orthodox Church demands conversion from the spouses if they are of another religion and want a church wedding, so just by this alone the number of Orthodox tend to be higher. Even if their conversions would be not honest, they still would figure in the numbers. Another thing of note was the anti-Anastas campaign by the "Red And Black Alliance" (Aleanca Kuq e Zi) which might have promoted many nationalist Orthodox Albanians to refuse to declare religion. But as I said, the issue is not the Orthodox, since even the Catholics and the Bektashis have criticized the census results. Vargmali (talk) 18:31, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

@Calthinus, @Vargmali the lines between Bektashi and Sunni has blurred somewhat due to both sides not adhering much to traditional practices of their Muslim denominations that caused it to be more visible in the past + intermarriage. Though considered separate some Bektashi do consider themselves in a generic sense as Muslims. The the higher birthrate for Muslims has come from the north-east, the less integrated ones -Clayer goes into this (see that article link i posted above). Yes there where sizable discrepancies with certain areas like Myzeqe that is populated by Orthodox settlements, but the same case can be made of areas that have Muslims, but the idea that there has been a massive rise in Orthodox numbers is not borne out. 13, 000 is the main number of converts from Islam to Christianity. That is divided among evangelical groups and the Orthodox church though Catholic missionaries have been proselyting among Muslims too. In areas of southern Albania from the Korca zone up until the Bregdet zone, numbers have fallen of villagers residing there (i.e migration to Greece -many permanent -in monographs by Winifrith and Nitsiakos both refer to the depopulation process of the area), and much of those contained the Orthodox population in Albania. Only the next census will bear out what discrepancies the 2011 census had as the EU will make it a precondition that Albania conducts a census to EU standards. Until then, if academics have done studies and other reliable academic data etc they are our best attempt at kind of getting some picture of what has happened with regards to religious demographics post 1992. The best thing we can do for now is to just keep an eye out for when such data is published and available and then we can make edits. Best.Resnjari (talk) 19:47, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

The number of villagers has fallen dramatically throughout the whole country, the country being on the process of urbanization. Only in the period 2009-2013 133,544 immigrants, mainly from Greece and Italy, returned to Albania. INSTAT reports that 70.8% of migrants came from Greece and 23% from Italy[5]. Thus their emmigration is not permanent in nature and certainly there is no correlation between religious affiliation and reason of emigrating to Greece , rather it is of economic nature and irrespective of religious affiliation. It is important to highlight the fact that prior to 1990 Albania was the most isolated country on this planet thus no Albanian could leave the country. The 2011 census claims that the orthodox community has fallen by a rate which is 30x times higher than the rate of reduction of the muslim community which simply said is pure insanity to any mind that understands the most basic notions of the science of statistics. Gjirokastra15 (talk) 21:21, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

They have left though migration has affected the Orthodox disproportionately more then the rest. After the WW2 they had already gone from 20% from the census of the Zog yeas to 17% in 1945. The Enver years had integration, etc resulted in a birthrate that was not on par with the other communities. That Enver disliked Ghegs and all Catholics in Albania and Muslims up north belonged to that subgroup meant less integration and higher birthrate (Clayer goes into this). But i am not going to entertain ideas that there is some conspiracy that happened in 2011 in the census. Poor training of census takers and incompetence were the main culprits. The Orthodox Albanian community is represented in government, we have had people in high positions and leaders of the country controlling the levers of power post 1992. Even now much of Rama's cabinet is Orthodox (with him being Orthodox now Catholic). Census takers were Orthodox while others came from different religions. If something dodgy on a mass scale occurred, it would have been revealed from within -especially post Berisha. Well anyway, if or when there are studies published we should all just keep an eye out for them, its the best we can do in such circumstances. Best.Resnjari (talk) 21:44, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

I would not put that much faith on the 13.000 conversion study, since it seems likely they focused only on the Evangelical/Protestant groups. Also I will have to say that because of partisan politics and party loyalty (related to the spoils system that keeps many families afloat) transparency becomes harder. Also the government saying openly that the census was manipulated in favor of one or another religious group could cause religious tensions. Another thing of note is that we have no explanation at all how it went from 70% undeclared (the preliminary census result) to only 13% in the final results. So based on the preliminary results the undeclared/non-religious would be more hit than all other groups. But yes, the best thing we could do is focus on finding newer sources. Vargmali (talk) 15:37, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Hi Vargmali ! The preliminary results usually refer to a sample of data shown early by the government of where the census was undertaken not the whole thing. On the 13, 000 number, its from an academic study published in the West that gives figures outside what the government and religious organisations claim to be the "real" figure of their flocks. One thing in this whole census matter is that though census numbers are disputed due to the problems of the process, there is a tendency to place trust in Orthodox or Bektashi numbers from their religious organisations as being factual or "reliable" by some quarters in Albania etc. There is nothing out there to point that their numbers stack up as well, especially with the Orthodox whose numbers -due to a falling birthrate were in decline from many decades ago, yet alone post 1992 migration to Greece as well. In relation to the Orthodox church etc they have claimed that their numbers are from the 400, 000 mark up to at times 700,000 ! That does not make sense at all. Either so many Muslims converted to Orthodoxy or the Orthodox have a very high birthrate and migration never happened. Unless there is actual data to show that it is the case for each or all of those 3 scenarios, i take with a grain of salt the claim that large scale authentic conversions occurred. On the Bektashi, most live in the south, were integrated into the system under Enver and their birthrate went down to the one to two kids. When i was writing the Islam in Albania articles etc i am came across studies that noted that Bektashi practices had to large extent been forgotten (due to Enver's anti-religion campaign). That some Bektashi identified generically as Muslims in the census then should come as no surprise. Sunni's a; that time voiced little on this apart from despair etc. Best.Resnjari (talk) 21:04, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Resnjari, if the preliminary results are so drastically different from the actual results this casts a massive shadow over the whole census. One can't wash a away a 57% difference from the census. Also, the 13.000 number to me seems rather dubious to include the Orthodox and the Catholic conversions, since they coincide very well with the numbers of Evangelical/Jehovah Witness groups. Now the Church says that 700.000 are members based on the baptism records, which even if they were correct (we can't verify that) they would ignore the fact that many simple are were nominally baptized or if left the religion latter at life. But I am not arguing about their numbers, but about the fact that conversion to Orthodox Christianity was a widespread phenomena to just ignore or dismiss like that even. Also we do have studies like the European Social Survey in 2012 that show the Orthodox to be closer to 10% and not 6%. As for the Bektashis, we have no data to show their decline of fertility during Communism and to compare it to the Sunnis. Also, during Communism there was a natalist policy which even party members followed, with the exception of a small urban elite. Since the Bektashis remained rural during Communism, even if their practices were damaged their identity would remain. For example the European Social Survey from 2012 also puts them at 10%, and not anything closer to 2%. The census is simply the outliner here. Vargmali (talk) 09:25, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

In general the quality of the data of this census is questionable. We should use such data with heavy precaution as they do not reflect the real demographic picture of the country (EC, UN organizations, CIA factbook etc. & some recent secondary-academic papers are a few sources that support the dubious nature of this procedure).Alexikoua (talk) 19:11, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

If reliable sources can be found supporting the fact that the preliminary results showed a 70% as undeclared , then it is only logical that this fact gets the merited attention next to the census results.Gjirokastra15 (talk) 20:03, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

The big thing is "if" there is something, if there is nothing, its only conjecture. Best.Resnjari (talk) 21:04, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Gjirokastra15 Resnjari this is probably what Vargmali was talking about: [Censusi permbys fete 70 per qind refuzojne ose nuk e deklarojne besimin]. The original source is INSTAT, but I'm lazy so you're getting this from me at least. Here's a quote:

Shifra 70%, e përmendur më herët në media, që sugjeron numrin e të regjistruarve që nuk janë shprehur për besimin, rezulton përafërsisht e vërtetë edhe sipas burimeve nga INSTAT/ Duke mos marrë në konsideratë faktin se rreth 1 milionë emigrantë nuk janë bërë pjesë e censusit, atëherë ndërtimi i fytyrës së re fetare të shqiptarëve pritet të jetë befasues. Për krahasim në një sondazh të kryer që në vitin 2001 në këtë drejtim solli në vëmendje shifrën se të paktën mbi 10% e qytetarëve deklaronin se nuk i përkisnin asnjë besimi. E marrë gjithsesi me rezervë ajo sinjalizon se një proces tjetërsimi është në zhvillim edhe pse besimi fetar perceptohet nga një pjesë e popullsisë si përkatësi për shkak të familjes dhe jo si çështje besimi.
English (Google Translate): "The 70% figure, mentioned earlier in the media, suggesting the number of registered non-believers, is also true according to sources from INSTAT / Not considering the fact that about 1 million immigrants have not become part of census, then the construction of the new religious face of Albanians is expected to be astounding. For comparison, in a survey conducted in 2001 in this regard, it was noted that at least over 10% of citizens stated that they did not belong to any faith. Yet, with the reserve, it signals that an alienation process is in progress although religious beliefs are perceived by a part of the population as belonging to the family, and not as a matter of faith."

... among other interesting things. Now of course I expect all of you to have different reasons why you find this acceptable or unacceptable but that is indeed what things were saying before the later set of results came out. Some might say the later census results were wrong and the census takers saw all the non-responses and just filled in the answers based on people's last names (some sources also report things along these lines). Others will say this is some sort of biased sample. According to this the ones excluded are "1 million immigrants". Either "sample" coming from the other is incredibly statistically unlikely. There's also the possibility that both are far off the mark. As a Wikipedian, the whole thing is fishy as everyone's claims add up to something like 200% and the mapping of regions in the census is entirely bizarre as you have one nearly totally 30% undeclared rural commune next to a 90% declared rural commune with the same culture etc, there other weird random blips like pockets of Catholics in Orthodox/Bektashi regions in the South, mysterious disappearance of the population of cities and regions from other surveys, and other totally bizarre things I can't find any source explaining; at the end of the day, as a Wikipedian, don't have a clue, and I don't need to have a clue. As almost everyone has noted in different ways here, there's been criticism of this census from all sorts of angles. To be entirely fair, Albania is a very complicated place with phenomena like atheists from mixed Bektashi/Orthodox background who "practice" both faiths (on holidays), these are not rare at all. How is a census supposed to capture that? One day we will be citing books about this census and others. Until then...--Calthinus (talk) 22:15, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Calthinus, point taken though with the last sentence from the cited paragraph from the news article, its mainly refering to a decrease of religious practice etc, not outright religious identity. When i was writing the Islam in Albania articles, i cam across scholarly studies which refered to these religious identities being seen in as a cultural thing -mainly secularised, not in terms of belief or faith. In that sense it tallies up with INSTAT's data that it collects separate to a census based on factors like church/mosque attendance, populations surveys etc. It still would not preclude that secular people or ones without belief could still identify in the census forms as belonging to a particular religion, but for them interpreting it as a cultural community thing. I know of people where i live in Australia that that have done that. More data for the changes underway are needed. At least when it comes to ethno-linguistic data, scholars have done sufficient fieldwork in communities that are not Albanian speaking to know where they reside which on that front is good. Best.Resnjari (talk) 22:52, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you Calthinus it suffices as an initial footstep. Personally i would not be surprised if such was indeed the case given the fact that the vast majority of Albanians are a bit confused regarding their religious affiliation and i woud suspect that many of them are starting to not equate religious affiliation with family heritage anymore especially those of muslim faith given the social pressure as a result of the en mass emigration. Resnjari, you seem to take for granted that the orthodox community has fallen in numbers , but such is not the case .... please do take some time to watch this material/these photos which although has/have no value as a source it will indeed show to you how wrong you are : Here for example you have the orthodox mass in the cathedral of Tirana [6],[7] ....as you can clearly see there is a minimally threefold dominance over the catholic one for the same event (Easter). Here [8] is the orthodox mass for Easter in the city of Korce which according to Instat is only 20 % orthodox ... i mean come on!!! It truly is a tragicomedy and i hope you understand the source of my persistence..... P.S Calthinus , i noticed that you thought i was a girl , i am sorry to dissapoint you friend but i am a guy :) Gjirokastra15 (talk) 06:16, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Gjirokastra15, the use pictures or even video footage can be used to show any set of viewpoints. As with your exmaple of the Orthodox and attendance, the Muslim community can also be a case in point where for years and years now when its Ramazan, the centre of Tirana and adjacent streets overflow with people doing prayers [9] (2013), [10] 2014), [11] (2015), [12] (2016), [13] (2017) etc and Korca Ramazan attendance rates are sizable [14] and could make the case and say see there are many Muslims. On the Orthodox I am refering to decline because the 1945 census already showed a 3% decrease from the 1930s figure of 20%. Secondly it has been cited in non-Albanian scholarship about the Orthodox birthrate decreasing over the decades in comparison to other religious communities. Then there is the issue of migration (yes it has affected other communities, however if a community was already decreasing in numbers that additional factor compounds the matter more). And on conversion to Christianity an acedmic study places 13, 000 as being the figure for actual conversions to Christianity from Islam in Albania post 1992. To reach numbers claimed by certain communities of increases, some in the hundreds of thousands (!) does not add up. On Korca, its rural countryside overwhelmingly has Muslim villages (especially to its north and western confines) and there has been an influx from them post 1992 that has impacted Korca demographics. Similar thing has happened to Shkoder and Lezhe with Catholic increases from the northern highlands, Saranda with Muslims from the Kurvelesh interior. Great change has occurred and is still occurring in how people practice or don't practice religion and whether they identify with a particular religious community in the context of being outright believers or just cultural community identification (secular context). Best.Resnjari (talk) 13:16, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Gjiro, sorry, though I believe I am not the only one who has used "she" to refer to you in the past. Me fal.

Neither of you are making good arguments here. First of all, the census did not say 20% Orthodox for Korce, it said 35%. You can see the stats here--[[15]]. You may have been thinking of hte figure for Korce county or Korce region, not the city. This was a decline from over 80% a hundred years ago. Some of that can be explained with migration, but not all of it. Anyhow. Both Christian and Muslim festivals are widely attended by people of both faiths, as well as people of neither faith. This is a well known fact about Albania. In fact rural Muslim and Christians might make pilgrimages (!) to sites for the other ones faith which they still consider to be universally holy. This is covered in plenty of academic papers (De Rapper, Gerda, etc...) aside from just being a well-known phenomenon. So sizes of crowds there don't prove anything.

Regarding Korca, the hinterland is not exclusively or even overwhelmingly Muslim as there are a mix of Christian and Muslim villages surrounding it. To the South and East, you have Christian villages: Drenova, Boboshtica, Dardha, Mborja, some Vlach villages in Qender. Then there's Upper Devoll with Hocisht. Also a few in the north, like Bulgarec. There were historically Bektashis in other nearby areas, Sunnis in the city itself and Halvetis around Pojan. An aspect of the Orthodox population has also been migration from the Albanian countryside to Albanian cities, at a higher rate than the Muslim population. Also with the others some exaggeration and simplification has happened here -- Saranda's hinterland is Greek and Saranda has many of those still even after heavy immigration (as per Kallivretakis it also has like 10% Albanian Orthodox, perhaps from Lukova region), Catholic migration to Shkoder and Lezhe was already underway during the 19th century adn the cities already had sizable Catholic populations in 1918 as per the Austrian census.

Intermarriage is a complicating factor and is characteristic of Korce; results of Orthodox-Muslim marriage tend to end up identifying as Orthodox and often practicing neither; in any case Korca is very culturally secularized. Regarding intermarriage, by where Bektashis live, they should marry more Orthodox than Sunnis, and this has been discussed by various papers how this does happen. They are also culturally closer to the Orthodox when they are both in (formerly?) Gheg cities like Tirana and again intermarry in those places.

Imho 6-7% could actually be a legitimate number for the number of Orthodox believers (56% for Muslims believers though at the same time? Questionable.). However other polls taken after the census have shown higher numbers for the Orthodox like 12% and 14% -- personally I suspect that is the number that "identify with Orthodoxy". The Orth church claims its "own census" of followers shows 24-25%. But there is a complicating factor here-- it is entirely possible that 25 or even 30% of hte country has an Orthodox cultural background in some form which may indeed cause them to come to church and respond to this "Orthodox census", but many of them also have other backgrounds and identities (Bektashi, atheist, Protestant, etc...). The whole Orthodox-as-cultural-identity thing (as well as "cultural Muslim") gets convoluted when you consider how many people are both-- and yet each must be only one thing on the census, somehow. Various indicators have also shown that the Orthodox are the most secularized (the Muslims also are highly secularized, Catholics not so much)-- perhaps due to them being the most educated, and/or due to the communists successfully co-opting nationalism and painting Orthodoxy as an oriental, intrusive, foreign and "Greek" religion (in other ways they were harsher to Muslims or to Catholics though). When someone is of mixed Orthodox/Muslim heritage and practices neither (common) they often identify as Orthodox but that doesn't mean the census will say so, for a plethora of possible reasons. --Calthinus (talk) 17:43, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Anyways , i think we should just add that according to some media the preliminary reports were showing 70 % as undeclared. We could continue infinitely by projecting our own desires and estimations. Rresnjari , honestly i am not impressed ... A community that supposedly has 10x more believers than the orthodox community , gathers almost the same number of believers in Tirana as the orthodox community in Korce. Furthermore , i brought those photos so that they could serve as a logical footstep in estimating the real number of the Orthodox community and this could be done by estimating the difference between the Catholic & Orthodox masses in the capital of Albania. Gjirokastra15 (talk) 20:47, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Well that's your view and others contest that view. I am still in no way swayed that the Muslim population has decreased from such epic proportions that some quarters in Albania are alleging. With Tirana etc my point was that anyone can use photographic or film as "evidence" to make their point that a certain religious community is massive in relation to the others. In the end its not reliable because we are placing our own interpretation on such sources. Its why acedmic sources (i.e wp:reliable and wp:secondary are required at the very least. But with regards to Islam, revival (some see it as growth) instead of decline is what is happening over the years due to mosques construction in villages etc [16], [17].Resnjari (talk) 23:09, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

As i said to you before, this discussion produces vanity, however keep in mind that more churches than mosques are being built. The latest church to be built in Tirana per example is an advertist church [18]. However that by itself means nothing this being a nonlinear matter. The fact is that the christian population in Albania is greatly underreported : Here [19] for example you have 1 evangelical church that has 6.198 followers with an increase of 20 % since last month ... only 1 evangelical church in Tirana has almost more followers than the total percentage given for all the evangelicals/protestants of Albania. As of 2007 , there were already 189 different Protestant associations and groups. If you add to the equation the orthodox and catholic churches , the mormons and the the jehovah witness then it should become apparent to you that this requires a universal approach. Gjirokastra15 (talk) 00:44, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Gjirokastra15 I would support adding it, as it already is present on other related pages. My apologies for the tldr above. --Calthinus (talk) 21:51, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Its important that if it gets added that the word preliminary is added, as that data refers to initial and not final results. Best.Resnjari (talk) 23:09, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Resnjari-- of course. To not state that would be frankly manipulative. --Calthinus (talk) 02:42, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

@Gjirokastra15 the construction of mosques has been recent, due to previous funding issues post 1992 with the Saudis and now especially the Turks (due to their rising GDP) in conjunction with diaspora money filling the present day void. The Orthodox via mainly Greek (and some Cypriot Greek) money achieved the construction of many churches and the Catholics via the Vatican in the 1990s and 2000s having a head start of some decades on the Muslims. Muslims have been playing catch up as they found patrons willing to aid in revival and rejuvenation efforts in areas that traditionally were/are Muslim. My point with citing those two articles from Balkaninsight (from a neutral news source outlet) was that Islam is by no means a spent religious force in Albania. With protestant groups yeah sure there are many registered, does not mean their numbers are ballooning. Its like with the Iranians and their Shia organisations etc, registered but does not mean their presence has increased Shi'ism in the hundreds of thousands (as some out there types claim) apart from a few hundred. Also facebook is not a credible source for use in Wikipedia, otherwise i can use facebooks sites on Islam in Albania. You still have not presented (some) academic sources or something of the sort to show this massive decrease of Islam in relation to a huge upsurge in Christianity within Albania. Best.Resnjari (talk) 22:42, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

I have already stated that those links have no value as a source , especially the facebook pages , however they served as a footstep in showing you empirically & practically how much the census results do diverge from reality / how underreported the evangelicals/protestants are. That is pure WP:OR , but is the best i have in establishing by aproximation the religious composition of the country which is dynamic in nature.Gjirokastra15 (talk) 23:19, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

What's really weird about the understanding of POV is that while we have claims that Le Monde Diplomatique is useless as a wikipedia source in this case at the same time ultranationalist journalists such as Mema are fine to stay. No wonder the quality of such arguments are really weak for a noticeboard. On the other hand published maps such as the one of Diplomatique and the one in [[20]] meet both wp:ACADEMIC and wp:SECONDARY. There was also a claim to discredit Diplomatique on the ground that we have no primary material that points to a map like this one. Nevertheless there "is" primary stuff that verifies this map (CIA reports etc.). Not only that but parts of Kallivretakis, Nitsiakos, Winnifrith works are misrepresented and cherry picked in order to promote a false impression.Alexikoua (talk) 09:54, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

References