Islamic religious leaders Islamic religious leaders Islamic religious leaders have traditionally been people who, as part of the clerisy, mosque, or government, performed a prominent role within their community or nation. However, in the modern contexts of Muslims minorities in non-Muslim countries as well as secularised Muslim states like Turkey, Indonesia and Bangladesh, religious leadership may take a variety of non-formal shapes. Compared to religious leaders/clerics of the other Abrahamic faiths, Islamic clergy are said to resemble rabbis and not priests. Unlike Catholic priests they do not "serve as intermediaries between mankind and God", have "process of ordination", or "sacramental functions", but instead
Persecutions of the Catholic Church and Pius XII religious perished within five years, many of them in Siberia. In Albania, the Communist government assumed the role of liberator, since the country was under Italian occupation since 1939. The Catholic Church was denounced as the Church of the oppressors. All foreign priests and religious were expelled. Domestic bishops, priests and religious were killed, jailed or sent to unknown destinations. As in other countries, a peace-loving national Church was attempted as well. The government prided itself on having eradicated religion and closed every Catholic Church. After defining relations with the Orthodox Church in 1929, Muslims in 1931, Protestants and Jews