In this book, I explore the dynamic intersecting of conversion, leadership, and identity through the lens of religion. Here, “religion” is understood to be shaped by ways of thinking and action and concerns daily practices of social life. Although I use the terms “religion” and “religious” quite often, I prefer to emphasize “faith” in my argument because the Roma with whom I talked consider evangelical Christianity as a “faith” rather than a religion. They assume the latter is a characteristic of dominant cultures and associate it with the complex institutions and hierarchies which are meant for the majority and reach the Roma with difficulty. Faith is important for individuals who use it to make sense of their lives and move forward. Moreover, as a source of commonness and solidarity (the idea is at least as old as Durkheim), it is equally important for communities.
Romani evangelicalism developed historically as a new religious form and as specifically tailored to the local social reality. The first Gypsy Church in the world, announced under this name in the Baptist press, was established in the village of Golintsi, acquiring a building of its own, a century ago; this Baptist temple still exists today (The Baptist Herald, 1982, July–August, p. 13). In our time, believers attend mono-ethnic Romani churches and also participate in religious services of Bulgarian-speaking or Turkish-speaking congregations. The churchgoers I met during my fieldwork practiced their faith deeply, existentially and in routinized forms, going to main church buildings or gathering for prayer meetings at home. These meetings were and are generally open to Roma and non-Roma alike.
In the following chapters, I analyze the role of both men and women in the evangelical movement, although it is quite often seen as a males-only form of conversion, self-expression, and action. My aim is to explain the historical development of Romani evangelicalism, its peaceful or conflictive relationship with the majority population during different periods of time, and the emergence of male and female forms of leadership. I understand Romani evangelicalism as a political force for improvement of the Roma’s reputation in society, and as based on an imagined (moral) community of God’s chosen people (in Benedict Anderson’s sense of the concept, 1998).
My task has been to find the cohesive factor that links conversion, leadership, and identity. I believe this factor is the moral commitment that every evangelical Christian has achieved or strives to achieve. Through this commitment, he or she cultivates a sense of present, aims at the future and reconcile themselves with their sinful past. Perceptions of morality serve to create distances between converts and non-converts. The difference lies not so much in their varying religions or identities, as in the fact that the evangelical Christians have new ways of perceiving life, looking at it with wide-open eyes. My observations on how church members think and act, what they feel within institutionalized frameworks and the ritual context established by the Church, have led me to distinguish between actions within and outside those frameworks (cf. Lawless, 1988, for the American non-Roma female Pentecostals, or Lange, 2003, for the Hungarian Roma Pentecostals).
Historical Background of Protestantism
Protestantism arose as a reform movement in Christianity in the early 16th century in Europe as a reaction to the practices of the Roman Catholic Church. Martin Luther was a German monk who nailed his 95 theses on the door of Wittenberg’s cathedral. He was opposed to the sale of indulgences, which allowed people to purchase a document of pardon for their sins. He believed personal salvation is the fundamental aim of every believer and God grants it to those who have strong faith. The news of Luther’s Wittenberg theses spread quickly, making their author extremely popular (
The Reformation in Germany was followed by religious changes in other countries, including England, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries, and posed a challenge to Catholic doctrine throughout Europe. Protestantism became a separate branch of Christianity, whose main currents were Lutheranism, Anglicanism and Calvinism. Through migration and purposeful missionary activity, Protestantism spread throughout the world. As a result of its development and the contradictions that emerged in it in the following centuries, the major branches now include Lutheranism, Methodism, Baptism, Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, Adventism, Pentecostalism, etc. They, in turn, continued to develop in terms of doctrine, practices, rituals, and church organization, resulting in a variety of new religious movements with a Protestant foundation. Within the other branches of Christianity, denominations include Jehovah’s Witnesses, Latter-Day Saints, etc.
Protestant Christianity, also known as evangelicalism, encompasses all the changes that have occurred in the movement in the course of its development and segmentation. It emphasizes the spreading of God’s word (evangelism), conversion and adherence to the authority of the Bible. The results of missionary activity are quite diverse in different cultural contexts, but what all new converts have in common is their belief in Jesus Christ.
Evangelicalism tends to attract the Roma, who have long been accused of having no religion of their own (Hancock, 2008, pp. 1414–1418). Their response within the movement has been remarkable: they have succeeded in finding a faith of their own and a way for spiritual growth and politico-religious development by creating the Romani Church. Like other Christians, the Roma are members of various confessional branches: they have Methodist, Congregationalist, Baptist or Adventist congregations, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc. However, the most widespread evangelical confession among them worldwide is Pentecostalism. Whatever their denomination, all Roma read the Bible, sing gospel songs and preach in their mother tongue.
Being an Evangelical Christian in Bulgaria
Protestantism is not a traditional religion for Bulgaria; throughout history, Bulgarians have professed Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The evangelical movement has developed in a country whose state assigned great religious power to the Orthodox Church, and where religious affiliation is considered as much a birthright as Bulgarian citizenship. To be a Bulgarian citizen is to be an Orthodox Christian. On the other hand, in Bulgaria as well as in the whole Balkan region, ethnicity is generally associated with the practice of a certain religion. Even as the ethnic Bulgarian is Orthodox, being an ethnic Turk means being a Muslim; anything else would be a deviation from the proper sense of the term. The Roma have often adopted the religion of the surrounding population. Thus, in Bulgaria they have traditionally been either Orthodox Christians (mostly in western Bulgaria) or Muslims (in eastern Bulgaria). The evangelical Roma previously professed Orthodox Christianity or Islam. In general, they do not have a black-and-white way of thinking when it comes to other people, but rather consider differences between people in an ethnic connotation, that is, I am a Roma, you are a Bulgarian, he is a Turk, etc.
All who are not Orthodox Christians are seen as “different” by the majority population. This applies to Muslims, but especially to evangelical Christians. As I will show in the following chapters, this differentiating attitude (based on an understanding of evangelicalism as a sectarian belief) is subdued now, yet still exists. The proliferation of denominations within the evangelical religion and the existence of various church societies (even the fact that one neighborhood may be home to many societies and churches within its boundaries) serves for the Orthodox Church as an argument that evangelicals do not have a “united” religion. In response to this, evangelicals insist that, although Orthodox Christians have a religion well-organized into ecclesiastic communities, and headed by the Holy Synod, and though they have one church building in each settlement, there is, nevertheless, no “true” faith.
For evangelicals, one may be a “true Christian” only within evangelicalism. Faith for them is very important for both individual and group identity; they can pray to God anywhere and anytime, and Jesus Christ is part of their daily vernacular, while often the Orthodox are seen as only nominal Christians. Most importantly, evangelical Christians are recognizable by how they behave in public and how they act, not necessarily because they are known to speak about the Bible in the streets or be members of a congregation. They differ from other Christians (the Orthodox) in society by various cultural elements such as their way of verbal expression, of dressing, etc.
Today, Bulgarians in the country number about five million people and are in their majority Orthodox Christians. Turks who are Muslim are the largest traditional minority community and are 508,378 (
The number of evangelicals is in fact far greater, but for fear of society’s rejection or discrimination, some of them did not indicate their confession to the census takers. In Bulgaria, practically no Romani neighborhood exists without an evangelical church or several prayer houses of the same or different Protestant denominations, and there are no Roma without evangelical relatives or acquaintances. In my opinion, between one fourth and one fifth of the Roma in Bulgaria are now evangelicals.
Other authors indicate more accurate figures, asserting that the number of Romani churches is over 800 (
Different Names and Terms
In this book, the terms “Protestants” and “Evangelicals” are both used. I use “Protestant” more often in the first chapter, in which I consider the religion’s historical formation in Bulgaria. I have mostly used the name “Roma”, but where the term “Gypsies” is employed in the religious literature, historical sources and archival material referred to, I have kept this designation. That is why the term “Gypsies” is widely used in the first chapter.
In the following chapters, I use the designation “evangelical”, “evangelism” and “evangelicalism”. “Evangelical” includes all old, new and moderate religious societies and churches that function in Bulgaria but is meant to exclude groups such as the Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc. For example, the Adventists emphasize both Testaments, and not only the New Testament, which is called the Gospel and recognized as the main religious reference by all evangelicals. I do not completely abandon the name “Protestants”, so as not to exclude Adventist and other groups that do not consider themselves evangelicals. Jehovah’s Witnesses consider themselves Christians, but do not define themselves as evangelicals or Protestants. They accept the supreme authority of the Bible, just like the evangelical Christians, but they honor God, called “Jehovah”, as the creator of everything, and they deny the divinity of Jesus Christ, which essentially distinguishes them from the evangelicals.
The term “evangelical” is generally most often used to designate a community of Romani and non-Romani believers who share a common identity vis-à-vis outsiders who are not part of their believer’s world and often are not associated with the traditional religion in the country. Within the panoply of denominations, congregations, and missions that may disagree on issues of doctrine or styles of everyday life, certain shared positions on basic religious and cultural issues contribute to the maintenance of a common evangelical consciousness. This is not the case in countries where Protestantism is the traditional church (e.g., the United Kingdom or Sweden) and where it is better to use the term “New or Romani Churches”, as the established church may also be evangelical.
The newly converted Roma among whom I conducted my fieldwork refer to themselves simply as “believers” (“believers in Jesus Christ”) or “Christians” (“true Christians” and “repentant Christians”). They are much less often called “Protestants”. The point of evangelicals calling themselves “believers” and “believers in Jesus Christ” is to indicate that others (Muslims and Orthodox Christians) are merely religious and do not believe as strongly as evangelicals do. The name “repentant” points to the change that has taken place in the new believer. He/she has repented and started a new life in the name of Jesus Christ. The use of the noun “Christians” emphasizes that, in fact, they are the “real Christians” and not “sectarians”, as the surrounding population sometimes call them.
Converts also refer to themselves by the name of the church to which they belong. People who attend Pentecostal and Charismatic churches generally identify themselves as “Evangelicals”, “Pentecostals”, “Charismatics”, or say they belong to the Churches of God. Others self-identify as “Methodists”, “Congregationalists” (or just “Evangelicals”) and “Baptists”. Among adherents of Adventist churches, the noun “Sabbatarians” is more common, because the use of this designation emphasizes that they honor the Sabbath day (Saturday), unlike all others, for whom Sunday is the more important of the two days.
In some cases in this book, I use terms in the Romani language (Romanes), including the designations of Romani groups. For this purpose, I use the most common version of Romanes. For special emphasis on a specific name or phrase, I present the word in Romani language as it is written, whether in Cyrillic or Latin characters. Evangelical hymns are quite often written in Cyrillic.
How Do Scholars Define Romani Evangelicalism?
My first thought in writing this book was to not overexpose my subject. I have tried to detect the nuances in the description of relations between the Roma and non-Roma, evangelicals and non-evangelicals, converted men and women, as many other scholars have written about the boundaries separating these categories. In fact, the dividing lines are not simple. I believe the Roma do not live in an isolated social world, they do not appear so differently in their way of thinking and their behavior from the surrounding majority. In this sense, the idea that the Romani identity (Gypsiness or Romaness) is under threat from evangelicalism seems to me over-stressed. This religion serves as a means for demonstrating the Romani closeness to other individuals, groups, and communities; and although the evangelical message emphasizes the religious rather than ethnic perspective, the Romani ethnicity is not in a precarious position.
Romani evangelicalism has long been an object of scholarly interest. Most scholars have analyzed the conversion of the Roma to Pentecostalism. While European and North American scholars have made important contributions to this field (Trigg, 1968, pp. 82–109; Acton, 1979, pp. 11–17; Williams, 1984b, pp. 49–51; Sato, 1988, pp. 69–93; Wang, 1989, pp. 423–432; Williams, 1991, pp. 81–98; McLane, 1994, pp. 111–117; Cantón, 1997, pp. 45–72; Gay y Blasco, 1999; Marushiakova & Popov, 1999, pp. 81–89; Gay y Blasco, 2000, pp. 1–22; Slavkova, 2001, pp. 243–246; Ðorđević, 2003a; Mena Cabezas, 2003, pp. 30–40; Kováč & Mann, 2003; Podolinská, 2003, pp. 4–31; Slavkova, 2003, pp. 168–177; Todorović, 2004; Branković & Ðorđević, 2006), only a few monographs and collections among the published works are specifically focused on this topic and explore Romani evangelicalism in detail (Lange, 2003; Cantón Delgado & al., 2004).
More recently, and in a short period of time, several original monographs and dissertations which young scholars have written have appeared, revealing the centrality of evangelical conversion in the everyday life of the Roma, and signaling that this topic of research will be particularly relevant in the coming years (Mena Cabezas, 2006; Hrustič, 2007;
Richly informative European and non-European ethnographic studies have been published, based on meticulous fieldwork conducted in various places where the spiritual revolution has transformed not only the overall socio-religious landscape but also the lives of different local population groups, including the Roma. Evangelicalism became a faith of middle-class Romani converts and also of those who live on the margins of society but would like to improve their status (Podolinská & Hrustič, 2010; Ries, 2010, pp. 271–279; Carrizo-Reimann, 2011, pp. 161–176;
An Empirical Approach
With this book, I try to contribute to understanding why people convert and the consequences of their conversion, namely, how converts manage morality, authority, and their individual and group identities, as well as the various transformations evangelicalism leads to in men and women.
My empirical approach combines collecting both field and archival data, press and Internet materials; hence, it involves various modes of interpreting research materials. The book is based on long-term and extensive ethnographic fieldwork. At first, I intended to limit myself to visiting only a few Romani neighborhoods in the capital city Sofia in Bulgaria and in the cities Sandanski, Lom, Ruse and Burgas, as well as the cities’ surrounding villages. I believed that visiting Sofia, with its three main Romani neighborhoods (Fakulteta, Hristo Botev and Filipovtsi), two small cities (Sandanski in southwest and Lom in northwest Bulgaria) and two large ones (Ruse in northeast and Burgas in southeast Bulgaria), for the sake of comparison, would be sufficient. It was inevitable that I visit the city of Lom, where the Bulgarian Romani religious movement first began. The village of Golintsi, where the first Romani Baptist church was established, is today the Romani neighborhood Mladenovo in Lom. But I continuously came across new and interesting events, and people whom I wanted to know better. Thus, I did not want to conclude gathering information. I followed my field and the people in it.
Although the Roma mostly live in neighborhoods of their own, I would not call their settlements ghettos; it is true that parts of some neighborhoods are ghettoized: the poorest live there. Some of the localities in question are ethnically mixed: in addition to the Roma, Bulgarians, Turks, and others, also live there. In villages, the Roma do not always have separate neighborhoods but most often live at the end of the village.
A church or a neighborhood may represent a case that is both typical and exceptional. Whether to consider the religious communities in a single settlement or in several different ones is, in fact, the main challenge to empirical data analysis. What, and how much, material one takes into account to claim exclusivity for scientific analysis seems the main dividing line between scholars of different disciplines. My peace of mind and self-confidence as an author is based on the rich field material I have collected among different Romani groups across the country.
I did not stay long in any one place but visited many neighborhoods and settlements, sometimes several times. I was not continuously present in the field and I pursued my work in recurrent visits over the years and by maintaining constant contact with my key informants. I maintain close relations with some of the informants to this day; of course, it is not possible to keep in contact with all of them. In some cases, I did not need to visit them in the neighborhood to consult on some questions that occurred to me while writing an article or in connection with the present book. I would simply call them and ask questions on the telephone; thus, they have somewhat played the role of consultants.
This periodical kind of fieldwork gave me time to reflect and think about follow-up topics and questions. I employed two different approaches to accessing informants: prearranged conversations with key interviewees and spontaneous visits to the neighborhoods (once there, I would simply ask where the pastor lived or where the evangelical church was located). I wanted to make sure each of the two approaches would give me different advantages in gathering information; this turned out to be true, and at times the details proved just as valuable as the basic data.
My personal motivation for engaging in the field of evangelicalism is related to scientific research. I was trained as an ethnologist, and when I started my university studies, I felt attracted to the Roma as a subject of ethnology. When I began my research in 1999, I was 19 years old. I was not fully aware of certain details about my informants’ lives, but, as I accumulated knowledge about them, their confidence in me grew and, in turn, they provided me with yet more information and thereby further expanded my knowledge of their past. The Roma taught me many things about life that have helped me as a person and in my academic career. I understood from them the meaning of faith, morality, deceit, honesty, respect, authority, the power knowledge holds, especially for a people who have long been subjected to rejection by European societies. I come from a Christian family but am not an evangelical Christian; a few of my informants seized the opportunity to proselytize me but usually stopped when I explained the scholarly nature of my interest in their religion.
I have maintained contact with my informants and have been devoted to the “field” for nearly two decades. I had the special privilege of observing the dynamics of the religious processes, which makes this research in some ways pioneering. Romani evangelicalism was much more conservative with regard to the influence of new religious ideas among the Roma, the behavior and dress code of the faithful, for example, or the possibility of career development for pastors and evangelical musicians, who today perform in cities around the world much more than they used to. It was also restrictive, as I saw in the late 1990s, with regard to the active participation of women in church governance. At that time women usually had little to share with me about the organizational life of churches, today I find my conversations with them in this connection inspiring.
I collected my ethnographic material through open-ended interviews and long conversations. I usually did not use recording devices during the research and chose to limit the work to natural conversation and note-taking. I attended many weekday and weekend religious services and was invited to observe various practices and rituals in churches, to participate in church or family holidays, or in common prayers. My presence in the church hall never went unnoticed because the pastor usually informed the congregation, they had a guest and asked me to introduce myself prior to the service. I also attended special evangelization and missionary events, conferences and seminars, evangelical concerts, and public and private gatherings in different locations. I was also invited to give lectures to church audiences on the history and famous figures of Romani evangelicalism.
In addition to the data I gathered during my fieldwork, this study is based on scholarly literature as well. I was constantly interested in what was published on the subject, no matter what language it was in, without ignoring the theoretical approaches used towards the Romani evangelicals that differed from my own.
I have also examined various original archival documents, the evangelical press and Internet materials about Romani evangelicalism. I also studied photographic materials, which reveal valuable information which is sometimes stronger than written words. While the written sources were important for this research, it is predominantly based on oral sources. The Roma’s knowledge of their evangelical history is largely based on oral tradition. Some pastors reminded me occasionally that, as a scientist, I must always rely on the facts, and that they trusted I would follow this rule. To find the historical information, however, I had to literally “dig” into various documents, newspapers, and archives.
Until recently, no comprehensive study had revealed the connections between persons and events in Romani evangelicalism in Bulgaria (
Here is an example. Elena Marushiakova and Vesselin Popov discovered the newspaper Svetilnik (Candlestick), which came out in a single issue, in 1927, with a supplement entitled Romano alav (Romani word), as a publication of the Evangelical Baptist Mission among the Gypsies in Bulgaria. It is a significant source on the activity of the Gypsy Women’s Christian Society (
I found some rare materials in the course of work. The most important of these were the documents of the Committee of the Gypsy Evangelical Mission, which I discovered in the State Archives in Sofia in 2003 during my archival research there (
I then had to compare the information obtained through fieldwork with which gathered from archival materials (the two diverged in some cases), and to understand which facts were reliable and which represented the informants’ personal interpretation of individual events. Moreover, Romani preachers have an opinion on every matter, but these opinions quite often differ, each preacher claiming the credibility and authority of his own views. I had the feeling that while writing this work, I must first solve a complex mathematical equation with many unknowns. I hope I have succeeded.
In addition, I examined several Protestant periodicals, such as the newspaper Zornitsa (Daystar), the first Protestant periodical, which began to come out already in the nineteenth century, and the journal Evangelist (an edition of the Baptist Union in Bulgaria), published in the interwar period. I specially examined the digitized issues of the journal The Baptist Herald, an edition of the North American Baptist Conference, and the available issues of Täufer-Bote (Baptist witness), a periodical of the German-speaking Baptist congregations in the Danube countries, published in the 1930s and 1940s. I paid attention to the printed and digitized issues of other evangelical publications, including Hristiyanski sviyat (Christian world), Duhovna obnova (Spiritual renewal), The Missionary Review of the World, The Missionary Herald.
I was aware that publications in the evangelical press were intent on propaganda, but they contained valuable information about which the archives were silent or that people had forgotten, and I did not want to deprive myself of such a useful source. I also devoted attention to various collections of spiritual hymns, editions of the Bible and the New Testament, religious literature, local lore and historical descriptions, unpublished materials, all of which helped me obtain a complete picture of the evangelical presence in Bulgaria and among the Roma in particular.
However, while conducting research and making sense of the field material, my focus broadened considerably with more details and ideas. Hence, in aiming to acquire a global view of the ethnographic field, I explored additional sources such as social media, etc. I agree with Marcus that modern-day researchers cannot be satisfied with the local and specific contexts alone (1995; see also Sutherland, 1998). Thus, I employed the approach of following the people themselves and the trajectories of their activities. I used the social media both for communication and as a source: there, pastors and regular worshipers share abundant information, pictures and live videos of religious services and events. I also watched YouTube videos of sermons, home church meetings, evangelization events or concerts – videos that I had discovered or that my interlocutors suggested that I see.
My Informants
My main intention in this book is to present the evangelical Roma as they are. At times, it has been difficult for me to eliminate subjectivity from my perspective (perhaps this was the greatest challenge), for I have communicated for years with the people I call my “interlocutors” and “informants”, and they have become part of my life. The study is based on conversations with several hundred men and women. Among these are Romani pastors and their wives, churchgoers, relatives of evangelicals, non-Romani religious ministers, as well as non-believers of different professions, such as teachers, municipal councilors, doctors, nurses, businessmen and many others in some way connected with, or having experience in working with, evangelical Roma. The ages of my interlocutors vary between 18 and 95 years. When I was interested in the children’s point of view on a certain topic, I talked with them with the help and permission of parents, of a mother or grandmother (who might also be taking care of them).
I had to learn to think like them in certain situations and to see the world through their eyes. Informants sometimes referred to me as amari devleskeri phen (our God’s sister). Sitting down to write, however, I had to assess and describe them and their way of life to the reader objectively, as adequately as I could.
For the Roma, the group is the principal unit of cultural and social integration. Within groups, Roma share Romani or non-Romani identities, a religion, a linguistic dialect, past ways of life (nomadic and settled) and, usually, an occupational specialty, such as basket-making, spoon-making, music-making, etc. (Gilliat-Smith, 1915–1916, pp. 1–109;
In general, all the Roma in Bulgaria today have settled down. The way of life they led in the past was related to the specific profession they practiced, which in turn determines their group names, most of which have been preserved to this day. For example, the Kalajdži were traditional tinsmiths of household utensils; this service is rarely offered today, as there is no demand for it. The problem with this particular name is related to the fact that at least three separate groups in Bulgaria use it, all calling themselves “Kalajdži” (Marushiakova & Popov, 2009, pp. 177–198).
The Roma I studied fall into two major groups: former Orthodox Christians or former Muslims, converted to evangelicalism. Among the former Orthodox Christians, some groups see themselves as Roma/Gypsies: the Vlaxički tsigani (Wallachian Gypsies) call themselves Cucumani or Rešetari (sieve-makers) and live in the region of Lom; the Kalajdži (tinsmiths), Dasikane Roma (Bulgarian Gypsies) and Rešetari, in the region of Pleven; Košničari (basket-makers), in the Lukovit region; Kaldaraši (their self-designation is Rrom Ciganjaka; used in the meaning of “true Gypsy”) in northern and southeastern Bulgaria; Burgudži (gimlet-makers; a gimlet is a hand-forged tool for drilling holes) in northern Bulgaria; Thracian Kalajdži (the group name they use is Vlaxorja) in the Stara Zagora region.
Some groups do not consider themselves Roma/Gypsies. Some of these identify themselves as Bulgarians or use names suggesting their cultural closeness to the Bulgarians, such as Džorevci in the Sofia region, Stari Bâlgari (Old Bulgarians) in the region of Nova Zagora, Kotel, Yambol, Burgas (see also Zlatanović, 2006, pp. 133–151). They also define themselves as Asparuxovi Bâlgari (Asparuh Bulgarians), after the name of the Bulgarian Khan Asparuh (Asparuh was ruler of Bulgars and is credited with the establishment of the First Bulgarian Empire in 681), whom they consider having been their “king”; or as Demirdži (ironsmiths). Some of the groups define themselves as “Rumanians”, “Wallachians”, “Bulgarians” or Rudari. The Rudari are divided into two subgroups: Ursari (bear-trainers) and Lingurari (spoon-makers, also called Kopanari, trough-makers). The Romanian-speaking Rudari live in various places in Bulgaria and do not inhabit only one region. Groups which were nomads until more recently than the other communities are the Kaldaraši, Burgudži, Thracian Kalajdži and Rudari.
From the larger group of former Muslims some do present themselves as Roma/Gypsies: Erli (i.e., locals) in the regions of Sofia and Kyustendil; Kalajdži in northwestern Bulgaria; Ajdi/Ajdini in the Yambol region; Fičiri in the Yambol and Stara Zagora regions; Zagundži in the Burgas region; Musikanti (musicians) in the towns of Kotel and Kableshkovo; Gradeški tsigani (Gypsies originating from the village of Gradets, near Kotel); Xoraxane Roma (Turkish Gypsies) in the western and eastern parts of Bulgaria. Yet, some of the groups have converted several times; they had converted from Islam to Orthodox Christianity, and then to evangelicalism; such is Erli’s case.
The Millet are groups that do not consider themselves Roma. They live in various places in southern and eastern Bulgaria. Representatives of this group define themselves as “Millet”, “Turks” or “Muslims”, terms that are synonymous for them. In some cases, the name “Millet” is used by some Muslim Gypsies to distinguish themselves both from the Turks and the Roma. There are Roma who prefer to identify only as “Turks” and do not use the term “Millet” in the regions of Nova Zagora, Pleven, Sandanski, etc. The Kamčibojli consider themselves either “Turks” or “Gypsies”. The name derives from their place of origin, the vicinity of the river Kamchiya in southeastern Bulgaria. The Ajdi and Kamčibojli were formerly nomads (Slavkova, 2007, pp. 205–246).
In neighborhoods, villages, town, cities or districts, these various Roma are linked with the non-Roma population through shared participation in social life and the economy (of course, the oppositions or tensions between the representatives of the majority and the minority are not to be excluded). These connections may be weak or strong, but they form a basis for a sense of belonging to the national state; this does not eliminate the sense of having a specific cultural (and ethnic) identity.
Structure of the Book
This book consists of three chapters with acknowledgments and an introduction. The scene is set by the introduction and closes with my final remarks. The first chapter, The Evangelical Roma in History, offers a contextualization of evangelical Christianity in Bulgaria in outlining the historical development of Romani evangelicalism. It explores the origins and legitimization of Romani churches among the dominant culture and the Roma’s striving for emancipation. In Chapter Two, The Politics of Romani Evangelicalism, I present the results of my empirical work. I trace the construction of the Evangelical Church both as an institution and a community, the emergence of spiritual leadership in its male and female form, and the institutionalization of the everyday life of Romani converts by means of rituals and through the lens of righteous and wrong actions. In Chapter Three, The Evangelical Roma as an Imagined Community, I consider the evangelical field as a whole and trace its dimensions as manifested in the everyday life of the Roma. I consider the ways in which evangelicalism has optimized the ideal of a Christian way of life for the Roma. Through a theoretical perspective on evangelical faith as a project of identity formation, I advance the argument regarding the construction of an imagined community of converted Roma, who share some general perceptions and moral commitments that link them with evangelicals across the world.