neutral, with no official religion and that the free exercise of religion should be extended to all faiths. Neither in government nor in the school system should favor be shown to any one faith over another. Albanism was substituted for religion, and officials and schoolteachers were called "apostles" and "missionaries." Albania's sacred symbols were no longer the cross and the crescent, but the Flag and the King. Hymns idealizing the nation, Skanderbeg, war heroes, the king and the flag predominated in public-school music classes to the exclusion of virtually every other theme. The first reading lesson in elementary schools introduced a patriotic catechism beginning with this sentence, "I am an Albanian. My country is Albania." Then there follows in poetic form, "But man himself, what does he love in life?" "He loves his country." "Where does he live with hope? Where does he want to die?" "In his country." "Where may he be happy, and live with honor?" "In Albania." Italian occupation On 7 April 1939, Albania was invaded by Italy under Benito Mussolini, which had long taken an interest in gaining dominance over Albania as an Italian sphere of influence during the interwar period. The Italians attempted to win the sympathies of the Muslim Albanian population by proposing to build a large mosque in Rome, though the Vatican opposed this measure and nothing came of it in the end. The Italian occupiers also won Muslim Albanian sympathies by causing their working wages to rise. Mussolini's son-in-law Count Ciano also replaced the leadership of the Sunni Muslim community, which had recognized the Italian regime in Albania, with clergy that aligned with Italian interests, with a compliant "Moslem Committee" organization, and Fischer notes that "the Moslem community at large accepted this change with little complaint". Most of the Bektashi order and its leadership were against the Italian occupation and remained an opposition group. Fischer suspects that the Italians eventually tired of the opposition of the Bektashi Order, and had its head, Nijaz Deda, murdered. The Albanian Orthodox hierarchy also acquiesced in the occupation, according to Fischer. The primate of the church, Archbishop Kisi, along with three other bishops, expressed formal approval of the Italian invasion in 1939. Metropolitan Visarion Xhuvani was part of the delegation which carried the Albanian throne to Victor Emanuel III in Rome. The Catholic Church and many Catholics were supportive of the invasion, but Fischer states there