For a mass baptism, a Catholic priest stood at the altar in the church on the hill, immersing dozens of heads in water and drawing a cross with a finger on each forehead.
Then he rejoiced that Christianity had restored souls in a country where the people were overwhelmingly Muslim—like the men, women, and children before him.
The ceremony was one of many held in recent months in Kosovo, which declared itself an independent state in 2008 and is mostly inhabited by ethnic Albanians and was formerly a Serb territory. In the spring of last year, 93 percent of the population declared themselves to be Muslims, and only 1.75 percent were Roman Catholics. .
A small number of ethnic Albanian Christian activists, all converted to Islam, urge their ethnic relatives to look to the church as an expression of their identity. They call it a “return movement,” a push to revive the pre-Islamic past, which they see as an anchor for Kosovo in Europe and a barrier against religious extremism spreading from the Middle East.
Ethnic Albanians were primarily Catholic until the Ottoman Empire conquered present-day Kosovo and other areas of the Balkans in the 14th century and introduced Islam. Under the Ottoman rule, which lasted until 1912, the majority of the people of Kosovo changed their faith.
By reversing this process, ethnic Albanians can regain their original identity, says priest Fran Kolaj, who performs baptisms outside the village of Llapushnik.
Ethnic Albanians, who trace their roots to an ancient people called the Illyrians, live mainly in Albania, located on the Adriatic Sea. But they also make up the vast majority of the population in neighboring Kosovo and more than a quarter of the population in North Macedonia.
Nationalist emblems combine with religious iconography in the church where baptisms take place. The double-headed eagle symbol of Albania adorns the tower and also the screen behind the altar.
“It's time to return to where we belong – to Christ,” Father Fran Kolaj said in an interview.
In many Muslim countries, apostasy can result in severe punishment, sometimes even death. So far, the baptisms in Kosovo have not sparked any violent opposition, although there have been some angry accusations online. (It is not known how many conversions have taken place so far.)
But historians who agree that Christianity existed in Kosovo long before the Ottoman Empire introduced Islam question the thinking behind the movement.
“From a historical point of view, what they say is true,” said Durim Abdullahu, a historian at the University of Pristina. But he added that “their logic means that we must all be pagans” because the people who lived in what is now Kosovo before the arrival of Christianity and then Islam were irreligious.
Like many other Kosovars, Mr. Abdullahu said he believed Serbia, whose population is largely Orthodox Christian, helped fuel the return movement to sow discord in Kosovo. And Serbia has been around for a long time He is accused of destabilizing Kosovothere is no evidence that it encourages conversions.
In 2022, archaeologists discovered the remains of a 6th-century Roman church near Pristina, and in 2023 they found a mosaic with an inscription indicating that the early Albanians, or at least a people related to them, were Christians.
Still, Christophe Goddard, a French archaeologist working in the area, says that it is wrong to impose modern concepts of nation and ethnicity on ancient peoples. “It's not history, it's modern politics,” he said.
Traces of Kosovo's distant pre-Islamic past also survived in a small number of families who adhered to Roman Catholicism, despite the risk of ostracism by their Muslim neighbors.
Marin Sopi, 67, a retired Albanian teacher who was baptized 16 years ago, said her family had been “Catholics” for generations. As a child, he recalled that he and his family celebrated Ramadan with Muslim friends, but secretly celebrated Christmas at home.
“We were Muslims during the day and Christians at night,” he said. After coming out as a Christian, 36 members of his family officially left Islam, he said.
Islam and Christianity lived largely in peace in Kosovo until Orthodox Christian soldiers and nationalist paramilitary groups from Serbia began burning mosques and driving Muslims from homes in the 1990s.
Foreign Christian missionaries have distanced themselves from Kosovo's proselytizing campaign. But some ethnic Albanians in Western Europe have offered support, seeing a return to Catholicism as Kosovo's best hope of one day joining the European Union, a predominantly Christian club.
Arber Gashi, an ethnic Albanian living in Switzerland, traveled to Kosovo to attend a baptism ceremony at the Llapushnik Church, which overlooks the scene of a major battle between Serbian forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army in 1998.
He and other activists worry that more conservative approaches to funding mosque construction and other activities from Turkey and Middle Eastern countries such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia threaten Kosovo's traditionally backward form of Islam. Much of this money was spent on non-religious economic development projects.
In the center of Pristina is a statue of Mother Teresa, an Albanian Catholic nun and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and it is dominated by a large Roman Catholic church built after the war with Serbia. But Turkey is currently financing the construction of a huge new mosque that will be even bigger.
Mr Gashi also said he feared the return of Islamic extremism that emerged in Kosovo's first, chaotic decade of independence. According to some estimates, Kosovo has been involved in the Islamic State in Syria more than any other European country.
He said that Christianity will pave the way to Europe.
In recent years, the authorities' crackdown has silenced extremism and strengthened Kosovo's traditionally relaxed approach to Islam. The streets of Pristina are full of bars serving a wide variety of alcoholic beverages. Headscarved women are quite rare.
Gezim Gjin Hajrullahu, a 57-year-old teacher who was among those recently baptized in Llapushnik, said he joined the Catholic Church “not for the sake of religion, but for the sake of our national identity” as ethnic Albanians. His wife also converted.
Kosovo's ethnic Albanian Prime Minister Albin Kurti downplayed the importance of religion for Albanian identity in an interview in Pristina. “Religions have come and gone for us, but we're still here,” he said. “For Albanians, religion has never come first in terms of identity.”
This distinguishes them from other nations in the now-defunct multi-ethnic federal state of Yugoslavia, which was torn apart during the Balkan wars in the early 1990s. In the early stages of the conflict, the main belligerents spoke roughly the same language and looked similar, but were clearly distinguished by their religions—Serbs for Orthodox Christianity, Croats for Roman Catholicism, and Bosnians for Islam.
Activists of the return movement believe that ethnic Albanians should also strengthen their national loyalty with religion in the form of Roman Catholicism.
Boik Breca, a former Muslim activist in the movement, insisted that the Catholic Church is not an alien intervention, but a true expression of Albanian identity and proof that Kosovo belongs in Europe.
According to him, his interest in Christianity started when Kosovo was part of Yugoslavia together with Serbia. He was sent to a prison on the coast of Croatia as a political prisoner. Many of his fellow prisoners were Catholics, he recalled, and now helped strengthen his true faith and belief that “our ancestors were all Catholics.”
“To be a true Albanian,” he said, “you must be a Christian.”
This view is widely contested, including by Prime Minister Mr. Kurti.
“I don't buy it,” he said.
The current push against Islam began in October 2023 with a meeting in Decani, a bastion of nationalist sentiment near Kosovo's border with Albania. A gathering of nationalist intellectuals and former Kosovo Liberation Army fighters discussed ways to promote “Albanism” and decided that Christianity would help.
Participants “We are not Muslims anymore” he saidadopting the motto: “Just being Albanian.”
This meeting initially led to the formation of the Apostasy Movement, a provocative name that has since fallen in favor of the “Return Movement”.
Kosovo's chief mufti, Naim Ternava, watched the return movement from his office in Pristina, which was decorated with a model of Mecca. The push for Muslim conversion to Christianity risks disrupting religious harmony and is being used “by foreign agents to spread hatred of Islam,” he said.
“Our mission,” he added, “is to keep people in our religion.” I tell people to stay in Islam.”