In the 2011 census, about 10.03% of Albania's population declared Roman Catholic Christianity as of 2011 census. Albania once numbered eighteen episcopal Sees, some of them having uninterrupted activity from the dawn of the Catholicism until today. The country has been a Roman Catholic bridgehead in the Balkans, with Catholic Albanians playing a role not unlike the Croats in the former Yugoslavia. In the Middle Ages, Albania was ruled by many Catholic rulers, including natives but notably the Angevins and it became a site of the spread of Catholicism in the Balkans at the expense of Orthodoxy as previously Orthodox Albanian nobles and their subjects converted as they grew increasingly loyal to the Western powers as a way to fend off threats coming from Orthodox political entities. Despite the ascendance of Catholicism at the time, Orthodox minorities remained. Before long, Durrës and Kruja became major centers of Balkan Catholicism, and in 1167 it was a significant event when Kruja became a Catholic bishopric, with the new bishop consecrated by the Pope himself. Vlora and Butrint also saw Catholicization, and at the peak of Catholic power in the Balkans with Albania as a stronghold, Catholic structures began appearing as far afield as Skopje in 1326. At the end of the 14th century, the previously Orthodox Autocephalous Archbishopric of Ohrid was dismantled in favor of the Catholic rite.