In the course of the seventeenth century, the social conditions and other factors, indicated above, bore fruit abundantly, and the numbers of the Christian population began rapidly to decline. In the brief space of thirty years, between 1620 and 1650, about 300,000 Albanians are said to have gone over to Islam. [603] In 1624 there were only 2000 Catholics in the whole diocese of Antivari, and in the city itself only one church; at the close of the century, even this church was no longer used for Christian worship, as there were only two families of Roman Catholics left. [604] In the whole country generally, the majority of the Christian community in 1651 was composed of women, as the male population had apostatised in such large numbers to Islam. [605] Matters were still worse at the close of the century, the Catholics being then fewer in number than the Muhammadans, the proportions being about 1 to 1⅓, [606] whereas less than a hundred years before, they had outnumbered the Muhammadans in the proportion of 10 to 1; [607] in the Archbishopric of Durazzo the Christian population had decreased by about half in twenty years, [608] in another town (in the diocese of Kroia) the entire population passed from Christianity to Islam in the course of thirty years. [609] In spite of the frequent protests and regulations made by their ecclesiastical superiors, the parish priests continued to countenance the open profession of Islam along with a secret adherence to Christianity, on the part of many male members of their flocks, by administering to them the Blessed Sacrament; the result of which was that the children of such persons, being brought up as Muhammadans, were for ever lost to the Christian Church. [610] Similarly, Christian parents still gave their daughters in marriage to Muhammadans, the parish priests countenancing such unions by administering the sacrament to such women, [611] in spite of the fulminations of the higher clergy against such indulgence. [612] Such action on the part of the lower clergy can hardly, however, be taken as indicating any great zeal on behalf of the spiritual welfare of their flocks, in the face of the accusations brought against them; the majority of them are accused of being scandalous livers, who very seldom went to confession and held drunken revels in their parsonages on festival days; they sold the property of the Church, frequently absented themselves from their parishes, and when censured, succeeded in getting off by putting themselves under the protection of the Turks. [613] The Reformed Franciscans and the Observants who had been sent to minister to the spiritual wants of the people did nothing but quarrel and go to law with one another; much to the scandal of the laity and the neglect of the mission. [614] In the middle of the seventeenth century five out of the twelve Albanian sees were vacant; the diocese of Pullati had not been visited by a bishop for thirty years, and there