The Autocephalous Orthodox Church of Albania (), commonly known as the Albanian Orthodox Church or the Orthodox Church of Albania, is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox church. It declared its autocephaly in 1922 through its Congress of 1922, and gained recognition from the Patriarch of Constantinople in 1937. The church suffered during the Second World War, and in the communist period that followed, especially after 1967 when Albania was declared an atheist state, and no public or private expression of religion was allowed. The church has, however, seen a revival since religious freedom was restored in 1991, with more than 250 churches rebuilt or restored, and more than 100 clergy being ordained. It has 909 parishes spread all around Albania, and around 500,000 to 550,000 faithful. The number is claimed to be as high as 700,000 by some Orthodox sources – and higher when considering the Albanian diaspora. History Ecclesiastically, Christians in Albania, as part of the province of Illyricum, were under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome (1st-8th century). From 732 to 733 AD the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Illyricum was transferred to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The Great Schism of 1054 formalized the split of Christianity into two branches, Catholicism and Orthodoxy, which was reflected in Albania through the emergence of a Catholic north and Orthodox south. During the moment of schism, 1054, Albanians were attached to the Eastern Orthodox Church and were all Orthodox Christians. Orthodox Church during the Ottoman Period The official recognition of the Eastern Orthodox Church by the Porte resulted in the Orthodox population being tolerated until the late 18th century. The Orthodox population of Albania was integrated into the Patriarchate of Constantinople, with the population of central and south-eastern Albania being under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Orthodox Archbishopric of Ohrid, and the population of south-western Albania being under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Metropolis of Ioannina. During the late eighteenth century, the poverty of the Orthodox Church, the illiterate clergy, a lack of clergy in some areas, liturgy in a language other than Albanian and the reliance of the bishoprics of Durrës and southern Albania upon the declining Archbishopric of Ohrid, due in part to simony, weakened the faith among the church's adherents and reduced the ability for Orthodox Albanians to resist conversion to Islam. By the mid-19th century, due to the Tanzimat reforms which imposed mandatory military service on non-Muslims, the