�Many of those who have studied Gypsies from their time of their first encounters with Europeans until today, have noted their attitude to change their religion easily and swiftly,� write ethnographers Elena Marushiakova and Vesselin Popov in the article The Relations of Ethnic and Confessional Consciousness of Gypsies in Bulgaria.
Since religious freedoms returned to the former communist states, large numbers of Gypsies have been steadily abandoning their traditional faiths towards new protestant religions. In some places converting whole communities. What many perceive as a new phenomena has been a movement that began in the 1950�s in Brittany France 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, 90,000 of the 600,000 Gypsies in Spain, 10% of Finnish Gypsies and 8% of the Gypsies in England. In Bulgaria approximately 90% of the Pentecostal believers are Gypsy.
Other views, like that of Catholic priest Otto Barota at Carei in Northern Romania finds fault within the church. �I was noticing fewer and fewer Roma were attending services and those that did were being shunned for their raggedy appearances.� Fr Botto later brought the church to the ostracized 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 as a means of combating the waves of Gypsies abandoning the church. The thirty-two page report outlined ways in which priest, nuns and laypeople could better administer the isolated Gypsy communities that are often characterize as baptized, but never evangelized.
Another milestone between Catholic and Gypsy relationships 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 the Gypsy community in the city Tirgu Mures in central Romania.
�I studied El Pele,� says Mr. Kurkuly, referring to him by Ceferino�s nickname, �he was a very poor man, like us, but he help the poor people very much. He worked with horses. I too have a horse� I heard Jesus say to me build church and name it El Pele.�
Mr. Kurkuly, in collaboration with the local diocese, purchased a Gypsy home and converted it into a church that services the Catholic Gypsies on the hill.
� Balkan expression
�The culture is probably my biggest problem: counseling child brides, getting accustomed to the musical funerals, and the party atmosphere surrounding the baptismal.� Says Fr. Markos Andras serving Romania�s largest Catholic Gypsy congregation at Orku in St Gheorghe in central Romania. �They have their own ways that they brought from India and this culture is filled with superstitions and magic. But this doesn�t mean they don�t have faith.�
�They have a very strong kind of faith,� adds religion teacher Agnes Koczka. �It�s a mix between faith and superstition. In fact they fear God more than they love him.�
�Roma traditionally have a special reverence for the Virgin Mary and which places her in a supplementary relationship with the Mother Goddess venerated by the pre-Aryans from India,� writes Dr. Delia Grigore professor of Romani studies at Bucharest University in her book, The Cultural Laws of Traditional Roma, ��Jesus dying on the cross is not a representation of Him, but rather, the Virgin Mary, who carried and gave birth to His son. In her icons, Jesus appears alive, as He is, the living Christ.�
�The children are most important,� notes Fr. Andras, �they are the future.�