Click here to read more about Sant’Egidio and the Roma in Rome.

Multimedia by Bogdan Mohora

Mira Kostich, Zoran's aunt, and her daughter Dana. Mira holds an icon of Saint Nicholas who is the patron saint of Italy and highly venerated in the Eastern Orthodox faith. | Photo by Bogdan Mohora

ROME — Claudio Betti weaves through a throng of people, both young and old, who have gathered  outside an old Catholic convent  in the Trastevere section of this ancient city. Traces of different languages — Italian, Romanian, Serbian — blend into nondescript words, ultimately drowned out by the nearby street noise.  The people come from many different places but they all are united under the title of Roma, popularly known as gypsies. Here in Rome, as elsewhere in Europe, they are among the poorest of the poor.

Pausing every few steps, Betti struggles to ultimately reach the door. He greets almost each person by name — like a party host making small talk with friends he has lost touch with and ushering others inside his home.

Betti knows many things about these Roma — their age, medical conditions and family members’ names — personal things he easily spouts off when questioned.

Betti reaches Daniel, a boy in his gawky and shy pre-adolescent days. Daniel’s hooded eyes immediately perk up when Betti vigorously shakes his hand and questions him about playing football.

Daniel’s aunt, Shafika, stands smiling a toothless grin. She has raised Daniel for years since his parents abandoned him because they had no way to support him. Shafika took him in despite being severely ill with cancer. Without any form of health care and fear of their illegal status, Daniel had to watch his aunt grow increasingly sick and fragile, until the members of Sant’Egidio welcomed her to their center.

Now, Daniel and his aunt, along with 14 others, live in an apartment above the Comunita di Sant’Egidio receiving free and constant medical care from doctors and Sant’Egidio members who have volunteered their time and resources to care for the Roma and other of Italy’s needy.

For the volunteers, it is the Gospel calling them to help the poor and downtrodden. And for Daniel and Shafika, and the hundreds of other Roma — many illegal, and all poor — who come to Trastevere, the Catholic lay organization of Sant’Egidio is one of the few places in Rome where being Roma does not matter.

It is a place where Betti — the assistant president and a founding member of Sant’Egidio, a born and raised Italian citizen and a devout Catholic — can befriend a group of people who are historically Italy’s most marginalized, hated, victimized and poor neighbors, no matter their religion or immigration status.

Sant’Egidio provides common grounds for the Roma despite even religious differences. Here, some are Catholic, Orthodox and others Muslim, but it does not matter to the Roma and matters even less to Betti.

“These are poor people, and the Gospel calls us to be close to the poor,” Betti says. “Once you become friends you discover very clearly there is no difference.” Betti acknowledges what every Italian seems to know, that the Roma are often involved in crimes, ranging from pickpocketing to organized theft. But he is sympathetic to their plight. “In the conditions they are living I would do exactly the same. If you live in a shantytown all your life and you have no possibility of [improvement], I would steal. Anyone of us would.”

“But this is something that doesn’t touch the ordinary mind of a person,” Betti says. “They think all the gypsies steal, they all are criminals, and many of them are, but they have never been given any other option. So I think this is one of the reasons why we work with them.

Many of the Roma who now frequent Sant’Egidio are now forced to travel from their new encampments in places like Ardea — a suburb an hour outside the city — for their social services because the villages provide even less resources and more neglect than ever before.

Approximately 1,500 gypsies live in this Ardea camp, the largest government-made Roma village near Rome.  Chain link fences surround the territory creating a distinct boundary between Roma and Italian — not dissimilar from the borders between feuding countries.

Trash cascades from dumpsters and pools on the ground nearby. Laundry hangs from multicolor clothespins on cables and washing machines sit outdoors accompanying propane tanks. Puppies run back and forth chasing children and loose trash tumbling through paved roads. Boxy caravans form zigzag rows for what seems like miles.

The rows of caravans are separated by wrought-iron fences and lay in three sections —the first section houses the Catholic Roma, in the second the Orthodox, and in the third section the Muslim. Much unlike Sant’Egidio where religion comes secondary and resources come first, in this camp, the Roma have aligned themselves on ethnic and religious lines as a way to protect and distribute the minimal resources they receive from the government.

Among the trailers is one where Mira Kostich, an Orthodox woman, and her two daughters live.  The couch on which one of her daughter’s lays sprawled and sleeping juts awkwardly into the entrance space. Kostich’s other daughter Dana runs circles outside, like a dog freed from its unfit cage.

Kostich stands in her shoebox kitchen, a cross hangs from the wall that is covered in rose wallpaper. She is the mother of two, and like all mothers, she finds herself sacrificing things for the betterment of her children.

But this evening Mira had to be selfish.

Because she showered that evening, her daughter did not have enough water to wash herself.

“Life in the camps is atrocious… it’s a bit like the concentration camps in the Holocaust,” says Ian (Xulaj) Hancock, the representative to the United Nations and UNICEF for the Romani people. “People are scrambling for anything they can get. Any type of group loyalty takes second place; the main concern becomes family. And religious differences are exacerbated by the situation.”

Dragan, a community leader and activist within the Roma camp, and an Orthodox Roma, says his family was split up when they were forced to leave Rome (many Roma have several generations living together). Since coming to the camps, he has been trying to contact Amnesty International to help deal with the significant lack of resources, mainly water and electricity, offered to the people within the government encampments.

The Roma also find transportation to and from the camps difficult — the nearest bus stop is 5 kilometers away, and even there, the bus rarely stops to pick up Roma, Dragan says. Because of this, Dragan has created a system for purchasing groceries where his family members often buy food in bulk to resell to other camp members who can’t make it to the city to purchase certain items.

But it is the violence between the different religions Dragan finds most alarming and dangerous for the families living within the camps. Dragan says tensions grow so rapidly within the camps that often squabbles over water will quickly turn into 500-person gang fights involving Roma from other camps as well.

Dragan says when everyone lived in Rome he and the other Orthodox “elders” had good relations and a mutual understanding with the Muslim elders, and this violence was never a concern. He blames the new violence on the younger Muslim generations in the new camps trying to assert some power or dominion over the land and resources.

Betti assigns these violent struggles not to any type of religious bigotry between Muslims, Orthodox and Catholic Roma, but more so a battle of necessity — and ultimately, he says, the fault rests at the feet of the Italian government which has segregated the Roma in the camps.

“These people have been interreligious, interethnic and without borders forever,” Betti says. “They have lived with their neighbors and they have not had issues of religion [in the past]. We are creating those issues.”

“They have created a situation of extreme need,” Betti says of the Italian government. “You will not find two families that will say they don’t have issues with each other. When you have to survive the crisis, you tend to protect what you have, and what you can eventually get…the territory, and you can get violent in that.”

“The war between the poor is always worse than the war between the rich,” he says.

And this war is manifesting itself in several stereotypes within and outside the camps’ lines. Zoran Maksimovic, an Orthodox Roma, used to live in the camps, but moved his family to a home outside the encampment because of the increasing violence. Maksimovic says when living in the camp, his children began getting involved with crimes and drugs. The problem, Maksimovic says, was instigated only by the Muslim Roma in the camps.

One day this past spring, Maksimovic returns to visit his other family members who remain in the camps. As he walks through the Orthodox section of the camp, introducing many onlookers as cousins or aunts and uncles, he stops to point out the Muslim section just visible through the slits in the fence.

“Only their side of the camp has all that,” he says, pointing to graffiti and trash. He defiantly disregards the similar conditions on his side of the fence.

Sant’Egidio — often noted for its facilitating of peace talks and dialogues throughout the world — has not stepped in within the camps to help ease any ethnic or religious uprisings. Betti said conflict resolution is this situation would bring about minimal impact, because there needs to be a much larger paradigm shift in the attitude toward the Roma on the outside as well as a betterment in their overall circumstances before the Roma within the camps can stop feuding themselves.

Though Sant’Egidio hasn’t interceded in any official capacity, Dragan said they were previously a large help in arranging meetings with various Italian institutions to discuss the future of the camps. Dragan was currently preparing to meet with a member of Rome’s mayoral office to discuss the Roma’s desire to build another camp in Ardea, which would allow the Orthodox and Muslims to be separated and stop competing for limited resources.

Rome’s Mayoral office did not respond for comment on their willingness to build another camp.

***

Sant’Egidio, though it is not working to provide conflict resolution, has concerned itself with simply bringing the Roma the basic necessities given to all Italian residents.

“Forcing people to live in conditions as animals in a Western European country is a breach of human rights,” Betti says.

Previously, Sant’Egidio traveled to the camps to provide schooling for Rom children, legal care and even used a caravan to transport medical equipment to tend to the sick in their own homes. Maksimovic noted that Sant’Egidio educated almost all of his children and he feels a great respect for them despite their religious differences.

After realizing the quickly and exponentially expanding needs of the Rome people in the camps, Sant’Egidio brought the resources, community volunteers and Rom together in a centralized location in Trastevere, Rome. The center allowed numerous other facilities that Sant’Egidio couldn’t provide by traveling to the camps. (Sant’Egidio still travels to camps in cities other than Rome, where it would be impossible for the Roma to travel to the center located far away.)

Today, the visitors browse through racks of clothing and shelves of shoes, launder their clothes and pick up bags of pasta and cheese at no cost.

The only requirement Sant’Egidio places on the services is that the Roma register in their system.

The registration cards, Betti says, provide some of the only documentation many of these people will ever have, since several are illegal citizens of Rome. The cards show simple details like birthdays and small photos, and come as a welcome respite from the fingerprinting the government began requiring of the Roma years earlier to help identify them. Betti adds since Sant’Egidio has the largest database of the Roma in the city (the actual computers containing the information are hidden from the Italian government for the protection of the Roma, Betti says), police often turn to him and the other community members for help when identifying dead bodies of Roma or suspected Roma criminals.

The services at Sant’Egidio are plentiful, but not exhaustive; the center turns away many medical patients each week because of limited supplies. Food bags are limited to one per person — children can receive supplies but must be accompanied by a parent — and the clothes which stack the shelves are only opened up to the community at certain times, not constantly.

The center relies on unpaid volunteers — all members of the Sant’Egidio community — as well as donations from shops and mainly public institutions like the European Union, and is heavily financially supported by the Italian Bishops Conference and the Foreign Bishops Conference (each conference supports different Sant’Egidio projects).

Sant’Egidio does not receive the Italian’s government’s otto per mille (eight per thousand), unless taxpayers specifically indicate on tax forms to donate their annual income tax to Sant’Egidio as a recipient. Even then, the community can only receive cinque per mille (five per thousand), as per Italian tax law.

But the donors, whether they come from the tax or store donations, are not notified of whom exactly their funds or items are assisting, Betti says. And Sant’Egidio feels no need to specify.

“If a person takes a stand of helping they do not make a difference between helping a gypsy or an immigrant or an Italian homeless,” Betti says.

But in a country so plagued by negative sentiment toward the Roma people, Betti agrees the donors would be “more wary” to help the gypsy community. Sant’Egidio has faced severe backlash throughout the country for openly helping the people ostracized by majority groups. Betti says Sant’Egidio has been called “not Catholic enough” for their non-proselyting approach.  Sant’Egidio invites all faiths and ethnicities into its’ centers and extends help with a secular hand. The center, which was built as a testament to the Second Vatican’s call for more involvement of lay people in church and good works, showcases no outward religious symbols.

Unlike many public areas of Italy, crucifixes are not found hanging on walls and there is no mandatory religious participation of the people who accept the help. Their symbol is simply a white dove flying over a rainbow.

The center even stands separated from the church in which the members celebrate traditional Catholic services.

Sant’Egidio — a lay organization officially recognized by the Vatican — it seems, is attempting a separation of church and state in a country that has historically tangled and twisted the two.

Hancock, the Unicef representative concerned with the Roma, says that historically “established religions,” — he notes Christianity and Islam as the main perpetrators — have not been welcoming to the Roma community, even excluding them from prayer services or excommunicating priests for performing marriages between Roma couples. Situations like this, Hancock says, have led Roma to shy from being resolute in their religious practices and instead align their spirituality with that of the country’s dominant population.

“It’s a means of survival to at least appear to be part of the society,” Hancock says.

The Holy See Office for the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People provides the Catholic Church with guidelines on how the Roma should be treated, integrated and evangelized. Its last statement on the subject, released in 2005, includes some harsh words and advice on Roma culture. It says in part:

“The Church recognizes [Roma] right to have their own identity, and works to achieve a greater justice for them, respecting their culture and healthy traditions. But rights and duties go together, and therefore also the Gypsies have duties towards other peoples.

Moreover, education, professional training and personal initiatives and responsibility are indispensable prerequisites for achieving a dignified quality of life for Gypsies, all elements of human promotion. Equal rights for men and women should likewise be promoted, eliminating all forms of discrimination… In this sense, any attempt to assimilate the Gypsy culture, and dissolve it in that of the majority, should be rejected.”

Dragan largely dismissed the document.  “The Vatican only cares about the Catholics, he says. As an Orthodox, he says the major Orthodox Church in Rome does not have enough resources to provide help to the Roma at the capacity that Sant’Egidio is able to. Additionally, Dragan says there are no specifically Roma priests in the area to educate children about their faith. The Roma community is particularly worried that traditions and customs will slowly begin to die down, he adds.

Cassim, the Muslim Roma camp leader, says that it is for their own house of worship that these Roma wish for, somewhere, that won’t elicit stares of pity or whispers of racism when families wish to pray together. At some point, in the struggles to worship, even the denomination of the higher being loses its significance to the Roma.

“It is important for the kids to believe in God,” he says. “Whether they believe in Orthodoxy or Islam, they need to believe in something.”

***

It is into this somewhat religious vacuum that Sant’Egidio has stepped in to offer some form of religious and spiritual presence to the Roma.

Betti says on major feast days, especially the feast of Saint George — a saint worshipped largely by Roma worldwide —Sant’Egidio members (all Catholic) will perform an Orthodox mass in the camps, where Betti says, often several of the Muslim Roma will also be in attendance to celebrate the day. To Betti, this peaceful coexistence should be emulated in all parts of the world. To others, the blatant disregard for doctrinal rules of worship could seem borderline blasphemous.

To Maksimovic, Sant’Egidio, he says, is one of the only places he and his family have been allowed to “be themselves” — a task achieved by a community which is sewn from the same societal fabric that so doggedly and stubbornly has woven a country that inherently rejects immigrant assimilation, especially that of the Roma.

“Racism against gypsies, it is compared to anti-Semitism,” Betti says. “Anti-gytism, it is called in Italy, is extremely strong. It matches, or is even more powerful than, anti-Semitism. “The judgment against gypsies is so bad they face difficulties on all levels… It’s a mentality, it’s a culture that they think gypsies are so different from everyone. It’s a hatred for what is different.

“We live in a myth that [gypsies] want to roam around. They are forced to do it because nobody wants to settle down next to them. They would love to integrate but they just cannot.

“Try to find a house as a gypsy, try to find a job,” Betti says. “You can’t.”

***

Maksimovic and his family have long faced these problems of joblessness and racism. His son recently lost his job as a chef because he was discovered to be a Roma and his son-in-law was imprisoned for a crime he did not commit,  Maksimovic says. Maksimovic was born in Serbia and has lived in Italy for the past four decades. His children were all born and raised in Italy and some of them have even married Italians.

He is still not considered a legal Italian citizen.

Pablo Naso, an Italian activist for immigrant rights, says the negative attitudes toward gypsies stem in part from the stringent anti-immigration policies of the former Prime Minister Silvo Berlusconi. These were built on the idea that if immigrants were given opportunities and assistance to integrate it would encourage more immigrants to enter the country. Instead, Berlusconi’s government made any assimilation nearly impossible.

But with the days of Berlusconi’s government behind it, Italy is en route for a gradual, but nonetheless, significant transformation. Naso says the right-winged Northern League is now in opposition, allowing for a much more free public discourse, especially about the Roma.

He adds he is optimistic for the future of the Roma’s social inclusion, saying he sees dramatic differences possible in the next 10 years as long as the Roma also create a “mutual bilateral process” of integration, ultimately being committed to sending children to schools, learning Italian and getting regular jobs.

Sant’Egidio is integral in shaping this new public discourse. In November 2011, Andrea Riccardi, the founder of Sant’Egidio was appointed minister for International Cooperation and Integration Policies within Mario Monti’s new government.

Riccardi’s presence within the government already points toward a new era of social Catholicism and open-mindedness nearly nonexistent before. Though Naso says Riccardi has already opened up several doors to immigrant integration, including visiting the Mosque of Rome, Riccardi’s efforts to rally support to change policy surrounding the Roma community has been near impossible to achieve, Betti says.

Riccardi has attempted, on more than one occasion, Betti says, to introduce legislation or a dialogue about the integration of Roma into society; it has repeatedly faced strong opposition. There would be a public outcry against politicians for putting services into place or providing funding for Roma housing before the needs of the Italian homeless and needy, Betti says.

So for the time being, Riccardi’s involvement with the Roma is limited to the resources and social services that grow out of Trastevere each Friday.

***

Aside from the social services that Sant’Egidio provides, it offers one other tradition to all who pass its gates in Trastevere. As 6 p.m. arrives each night, members and visitors alike stand still and observe a moment of silence.

For 60 seconds, all activity ceases, only church bells clamor throughout the city. The solitary minute acts as a universal call to pause and remember the poor and needy among us. It is a moment that all people, Roma or Italian, rich and poor, need.

Zoran Maksimovic at his home in Ardea, approximately 25 miles outside of Rome. Zoran built the house because he wanted to provide a more comfortable and safe place for his family than the government built Roma camp also located in Ardea. He said there are often conflicts and crime within the camp, which is segregated according to religious and cultural backgrounds. | Photo by Bogdan Mohora

The Council of Europe estimates that there are anywhere between 110,000 and 170,000 legal and undocumented Roma living in Italy based on the latest Italian census data. Rough estimates are the closest thing to reliable data when it comes to statistics about Italy’s Roma population. During the day, elderly women can be seen outside of churches, kneeling with foreheads pressed to the ground and open palms and at night hastily built shelters can be spotted along the banks of the Tiber River. The Roma of Italy are nearly as visible as the dome of St. Peter’s but Italy has been forceful in relocating their communities to the fringes of its cities.

Mira Kostich, Zoran’s aunt, and her daughter Dana. Mira holds an icon of Saint Nicholas who is the patron saint of Italy and highly venerated in the Eastern Orthodox faith. | Photo by Bogdan Mohora

In Ardea, a southwestern region around 25 miles outside of Rome and near the Tyrrhenian Sea coast, around 1,500 Roma live in government supplied trailers.  They were relocated after the government evicted them from their original camp in the center of Rome. Cement and rebar fences divide the rows and rows of prefabricated homes into Muslim and Christian sections.  Orthodox and Catholic Christians from Serbia and Romania are in the center with Muslim Roma from Albania, Kosovo, and Bosnia and Herzegovina on either side. Many Roma, like Zoran Maksimuric who is from Serbia, want to leave the poverty, crime and often desperate living conditions found at many camps and integrate into mainstream Italian life.  Maksimuric was able to make enough recycling scrap metal and eventually move his family into a home outside of the camp. While he’s beginning to put down roots in Italy, Maksimuric still has close ties to the camp that continues to be home for his family and friends.

Click photos for captions.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR. Click here to read more on Roma families in Italy.

On our visit to Istituto Tevere we met Bahar Dik, a Muslim student studying Mediterranean culture and religion in Rome. She shared a story about struggling to find a place to pray during a trip to Assisi and how a shop owner opened her doors to her. I thought Bahar’s story about praying in the back of a stranger’s store was a beautiful example of what it means to truly accept and respect one another’s religious differences in a personal and tangible way.

Painter Garabet Salgian at work in his studio in Woodside, Queens. | Photo by Bogdan Mohora.

Every Sunday afternoon St. George’s Episcopal Church on 14-02 27th Avenue in Astoria, Queens transforms into Sts. Peter and Paul Romanian Orthodox Church. Shortly after noon, after the Episcopal congregation has cleared out, the Very Rev. Theodor Damian arrives to arrange all the various icons and ritual items that are so distinctive and vital to all Orthodox churches.  With shaggy hair hanging just above his eyes, he places a roughly four feet tall painting of the Madonna on an easel to the left of the altar and another of the Savior to the right, the customary placement in all Orthodox churches.

As Damien begins the service, his gold trimmed robes faintly reflect the candles offered in prayer below the golden icons. He begins to sing the opening prayers and, as congregants enter the church and find their seats, most come up and kiss the images of Mary and Jesus. A young boy of around 12, in a black shirt and jeans with long hair, nearly identical to Damian’s, begins to arrange a collection of icons depicting Jesus, Mary and an assortment of saints on a table.

“They remind you to pray and to keep the promises you make to God,” said Nicolae Dendiu who recently emigrated from Constanta, Romania. “And they remind you of the promises you didn’t keep.”

Icoană in Romanian literally means “the face of a person” and the history of icons is as old as the Orthodox Church itself. Their function has remained virtually unchanged since the earliest centuries of Christianity: to make the divine accessible to human understanding. Perhaps the most important story about the church’s history and its relationship with holy imagery is about the Icon-Made-Without-Hands.

According to tradition, Abgar, a ruler of Syria was afflicted with leprosy and he had heard stories of miracles performed by Jesus so he sent his court-painter to paint an image of Jesus.  The painter wasn’t able though because too many people surrounded Jesus. But then Jesus washed his face with water and wiped his face with a cloth leaving his “Divine Image” in it, which the painter then took back to Abgar who, after being healed, hung the cloth above the city gates.

Icons depicting Christ and the Madonna painted by Garabet Salgian hang in his Woodside, Queens studio. | Photo by Bogdan Mohora.

After the slujbă, or service, the icons of the Orthodox faith are perhaps the most visible and accessible teaching tools of the church. According to the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese of the Americas, the church has avoided extensively defining its faith. Teachings are given word-for-word from the Bible and the church won’t define itself dogmatically unless it feels that fundamental truths are threatened. One of these truths is the vital importance of icons in worship. The Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America believes that not venerating icons of Christ, Mary and the saints is the same as refusing to worship God.

The images are so crucial to the faith that they are made only by authorized artists who have completed the proper theological and technical training.

Garabet Salgian painted the icons adorning the altar at Sts. Peter and Paul. He smiled while recollecting how he began his career as an artist, which started in 1934 in Odessa, Ukraine when he was four years old. “When I was good my mother would read to me before bed.  When I was bad she wouldn’t so I would draw in the book instead,” Salgian said from his drafting table at his studio apartment in Woodside, Queens. The roughly 400 square foot apartment doubles as his workshop and the air is thick with the sticky scent of oil paints. His work dominates the scarce wall space.

Salgian’s oil paints. | Photo by Bogdan Mohora.

Salgian also fell in love with an icon his mother brought from Ukraine when they immigrated to Romania. From then on he knew he wanted to be an artist. In 1977, he became certified as a religious painter by the Romanian Patriarchy in Bucharest. In his opinion, there’s no way to concisely explain the theories and functions behind the holy imagery. “It’s impossible to say in one conversation what they all mean,” said Salgian. “The technique and philosophy behind the paintings have taken thousands and thousands of years to develop.”

The unique sound and ‘”swagger” of the of New Life Tabernacle’s Mass Choir has been effectively getting people, especially young adults, inside of the church doors. Recently, even busloads of international tourists have been showing up mid-service to hear the infamous choir at 1476 Bedford Avenue in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

With a bishop who is also a recording artist, there’s no arguing that music is one of the foundations of New Life Tabernacle Church’s ministry. The Bishop Eric Figueroa, his wife Doreen and their daughter Anaysha have all recorded gospel music albums.

“My first time seeing New Life was at a concert, they were singing and I was just really blown away by the choir and their performance,” said Devon Brown, who is now the assistant director of the youth choir.  “So, I came one Sunday morning and it was amazing. I just felt like they’re not just a show but that this is how they act 24/7.”

Youth and Associate Pastor Dr. Angela Moses sees the choir and music as powerful tools to educate the younger members of their congregation about hard work, discipline and how to work together.  According to Dr. Moses, around 95 percent of children raised in the New Life Tabernacle community end up going to college.

“If one person is off the whole choir is off.  It’s one voice, one sound.  There’s so much to learn through music,” Dr. Moses said.  “I use it as a vehicle to teach young people of how to make it in life.”