Протестантската конверсия сред ромите в България: между глобалното и локалното [The Protestant Conversion Among Roma in Bulgaria: Between Global and Local]

Altanov, Velislav and Benovska-Sabkova, Milena (2010) Протестантската конверсия сред ромите в България: между глобалното и локалното [The Protestant Conversion Among Roma in Bulgaria: Between Global and Local]. Българска етнология [Bulgarian ethnology] (1-2). pp. 32-50. ISSN 1310–5213

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Abstract

The change of the religious identity among Bulgarian Roma has been an important and intriguing change, which has started decades ago acquiring, however, mass character and social significance, in the wake of 1989. The process of conversion among the Roma and their joining the ranks of the Protestant churches was noted by Bulgarian ethnologists and sociologists far back at the start of the 1990s. The authors paid attention to the rapidity and sweep whereby these processes developed. This has not been in the least an isolated phenomenon; it has proceeded in a similar way also in neighbouring countries like Romania and Serbia. The mass scope of the evangelization among the Roma should be discussed within the context of globalization, as part of the advance of the Pentecostal movement throughout the whole world. The main research questions I am going to look for an answer are the following. How the Evangelical churches in Bulgaria are functioning in their capacity of social communities, structured on a religious basis? How the religious conversion of the Roma should be qualified: as a fait accompli, or as an open and controversial process? How and whether evangelization entails changes in the identity and traditional culture and values of the Roma? To what extent this process may be characterized as an original local phenomenon and how far it may be discussed as a product of the globalization? The article has been written on the basis of field work in two churches, located in the outskirts of Sofia, both of them belonging to the charismatic Bulgarian Church of God (steaming from “Church of God“ with headquarters in Cleveland, Tennessee in the US). The field work was carried out in the course of five months in 2008 in the Gornitsata and in Bulgarian Church of God in the Lyulin-5 residential district. We discuss evangelical conversion among Roma in Bulgaria through the prism of historical development of the Bulgarian Church of God. The modernization of this church has resulted in its centralization and has been accompanied by successful evangelization among the Roma after the end of the 1970s. In the 1980s Bulgarians and Roma shared their religious experience together in ethnically mixed churches. During the subsequent nearly two decades after 1989, the Roma participation has become massive. This has entailed quite a few changes in the culture of the Roma and the acquiring of a new positive identity, without the latter replacing “the old“ identifications among the Roma. Hardships have also been observed in the adaptation of the Roma culture to the culture of the puritan moral standards of charismatic Christianity. Under the impact of global and local factors, trends of ethnic homogenization and capsulation have been observed in the Evangelical churches with Roma participation. The latter has enabled the politicization of the Bulgarian Church of God and its integration for the purposes of an ethnic Roma party since 2000. The universalist philosophy of the charismatic churches is no obstacle to the development of “nationalistic“ trends in the Roma churches. The globalization finds expression in the opposite direction, too, through the infiltration of the international networks of missionaries by Roma pastors. The evangelization among the Bulgarian Roma is an incomplete and contradictory process, accompanied by vacillations, by joining of new believers and the withdrawal of some of the old ones.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Bulgaria, Roma, Gypsy, anthropology, Protestant, conversion, social, cultural,
Subjects:	G Christian Traditions/ Denominations > Protestants B Mission Theology/Theory > Conversion B Mission Theology/Theory > Identity Issues H Social Sciences and Roma Christianity > Sociology H Social Sciences and Roma Christianity > Anthropology
Divisions:	Bulgaria
Depositing User:	Users 5 not found.
Date Deposited:	23 Oct 2019 06:51
Last Modified:	29 Jun 2020 10:44
URI:	https://r.ceeamsprints.brunner.at/id/eprint/156

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