bring the church to them.
Inside the community he set up a large white tent. In the place of a bell a guitarist strums the call to church - and the tent quickly fills up.
�We hold service in the tent only one Sunday each month. It�s important that they come to the main church. I encourage this and this way both communities, the Roma and non-Roma, are learning to accept one another.�
Fr. Borota�s extended arm towards the Roma is unusual in marginalized communities where the common complaint repeated is that the �priest only comes when there is a death� and which may play a role in the explosive wave of Roma conversions towards new, reformed
protestant movements.
Sociologist in Bulgaria studying the phenomena of Roma conversions found a direct connection between marginalized Roma and evangelization.
Elena Marushinkova and Vessela Popov have explained protestant missionaries success among Roma with inter-community factors including ordaining ministers from within the community and appealing religious services that discuss community problems, or as Florin Moisa from Roma Center in Romania puts it, �these methods give the Roma a sense that it is their church.�
�It is getting more difficult now that winter is coming and we are always having problems with rains
and winds and forced to always re-built the tent. Maybe America can help us build a lasting church here for the Gypsies,� he suggest with a hopeful grin. That�s exactly what Fr. Markus Andras in Sfantu Ghoerghe in central Romania did building an entire church for the segregated Roma community living off the city limits by the river�s edge
The church was named Mary Queen of the World Church because Roma worship is chiefly on the Virgin Mary. In Roma homes her icon is commonly exhibited on the walls rather than the cross. The cross stands as a symbol of death for the Roma. �The Roma are very afraid of death,� notes Fr. Borota.
Or as the Gypsy proverb attest; �Le Roma na kamen e mules!� (Gypsies never wish Death
Cultural Laws of Traditional Roma, �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.�
�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.�
This special adoration of female saints by the Roma is made evident by the two major Gypsy pilgrimages: Saint Paraschiva�s relics in Romania and the Roma venerated Saint Sara in France, also known as Sara-la-Kali (Sara the Black). Legend has it that St. Sara was the Egyptian servant to Mary Salome and Mary Jacobe that sailed north after the Crucifixion of Christ, settling in France where she set up a Christian community. During her pilgrimage her black-faced statue is carried down to the sea to re-enact her arrival.
�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.�
�The church has been around a little more than ten years and we are now only just starting to organize the community,� Fr Andras admits but with an optimistic smile � and goes on to say. �Christianity in Europe took 200 � 300 years to take root� What is ten years?� he shrugs. �It�s just a beginning.�
THE END