‘The Church itself must be Gypsy’
Chuck Todaro reports on efforts to stop a wave of Gypsies from turning to new Protestant religions
13 June 2008

Children gather outside the Mary Queen of the World Church in Orku, Romania

For centuries the Gypsies have been perceived as a people without religion. According to one piece of Balkan folklore, they once possessed a church of their own built of cream cheese. On one occasion, however, when they were particularly hungry, they ate the church and, for this reason, are now without a national religion.

Those who have studied Gypsies from their first encounters with Europeans have often noted a tendency for them to change their religion easily and swiftly. Since religious freedom returned to the former Communist states, large numbers of Gypsies have been abandoned traditional faiths in favour of new Protestant religions. In some places whole communities have converted. But what many perceive as a new phenomenon actually began in the 1950s in Brittany, France, led by the non-Gypsy Pentecostal leader Clement Le Cossec.

According to the Pentecostal church figures there are 130,000 Gypsy believers in France, a third of the country's Gypsy population. Fifteen per cent of Gypsies in Spain, 10 per cent of Gypsies in Finland and eight per cent of the English Gypsies are, according to these figures, part of the Pentecostal church. In Bulgaria approximately 90 per cent of the Pentecostal community are Gypsies.

Many traditional Church leaders criticise the new evangelists for giving Gypsies gifts or providing them with other economic benefits in an attempt to convert them. But those working within the Gypsy community have a different perspective. They point to the "inter-community relations" offered by these new churches - the way that they ordain ministers from within the Gypsy community. The Pentecostal church, they say, provides healing through prayer, music, spontaneous testimony and participatory styles of worship that appeal to Gypsies' character and spirit. Florin Moisa, of the Roma Resource Centre in Romania, explains: "These methods give the Roma a sense that it is their church."

Other commentators, such as Fr Otto Barota of Carei in northern Romania, find faults within the Church. "I noticed that fewer and fewer Roma were attending services and those that did were being shunned for their raggedy appearances," he said. Fr Botto later brought the Church to the ostracised Gypsy community in the form of a large white tent.

In December 2006, after years of silence, the Vatican finally came out with its own study in the hope of combating the waves of Gypsies abandoning the Church. The 32-page report, issued by the Pontifical Council for Migrants and Travellers, outlined ways in which priests, nuns and lay people could better administer to isolated Gypsy communities which may have high rates of baptism but are not truly evangelised.



It suggests that those serving the Church must live among Gypsies and establish relationships to win back their trust. The document says: "The Church itself must become, in a certain sense, a Gypsy among Gypsies, so that they can participate fully in the life of the Church."

Another milestone in Catholic-Gypsy relations came in May 1997 with the beatification by John Paul II of the Spanish martyr Ceferino Jimeenez Malla, the first Gypsy to be beatified in the history of the Church. Four thousand Gypsies turned out for the ceremony at St Peter's Square, including Elek Kurkuly from Tirgu Mures in central Romania.

"I studied El Pele," says Mr Kurkuly, referring to the martyr's nickname. "He was a very poor man, like us, but he helped the poor people very much. He worked with horses. I, too, have a horse... I heard Jesus tell me to build a church and name it El Pele."

Mr Kurkuly, in collaboration with the local diocese, bought a house in the Gypsy community and converted it into a church.

Scholars believe that the Gypsies' departure of Hindu India took place over 1,000 years ago to escape the spread of Islam. They are believed to have first adopted Christianity in Byzantium. A second Islamic invasion of the Turkic tribes drove them further west into Europe. Where the Gypsies settled they adopted the culture and religion of the majority and today they are a heterogeneous people following the Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran, reformed or Muslim faiths. There are an estimated 10 to 12 million Gypsies spread across Europe today, roughly the population of Greece.

Fr Markos Andras serves Romania's largest Catholic Gypsy congregation at Orku in St Gheorghe in central Romania. "The culture is probably my biggest problem: counselling child brides, getting accustomed to the musical funerals and the party atmosphere surrounding the baptismal.

"They have their own ways that they brought from India and this culture is filled with superstition and magic. But this doesn't mean they don't have faith."

Religious studies teacher Agnes Koczka says their faith is "very strong... a mixture of faith and superstition". She says that they "fear God more than they love him".

Fr Andras's church went up in 1992 and was named Mary Queen of the World Church. Roma worship is chiefly focused on the Virgin Mary. The altar is adorned with a mural depicting a brown-faced mother of God.

Dr Delia Grigore, professor of Romani studies at Bucharest University, wrote in her book The Cultural Laws of Traditional Roma: "Roma traditionally have a special reverence for the Virgin Mary which places her in a supplementary relationship with the Mother Goddess venerated by the pre-Aryans from India.

"Jesus dying on the cross is not a representation of Him, but rather the Virgin Mary, who carried and gave birth to Him. In her icons, Jesus appears alive, as He is, the living Christ." The Gypsies slowly filter into Sunday Mass; by halfway through it is standing room only. About three-quarters of the congregation are children, mixed in with the familiar blue and white habits of the six nuns coming from Mother Theresa's Missionaries of Charity, which works with the children. They spread out through the young crowd keeping order.

"The children are the most important," says Fr Andras. "They are the future."

Chuck Todaro is a freelance journalist specialising in Roma issues. He is presently working on a book about the various tribes of the Roma people