Journal of Global Catholicism — Catholic Pilgrimage in Eastern Europe — Summer 2020 — Vol 4 Iss 2

Journal of

VOLUME 4 | ISSUE 2

GLOBAL CATHOLICISM SUMMER 2020

CATHOLIC PILGRIMAGE and the POLITICS and PRAGMATICS of PLACE-MAKING in EASTERN EUROPE

ARTICLES • Marc Roscoe Loustau / Overview & Acknowledgments • Zsofia Lovei / Breaching Boundaries: Homogenizing the Dichotomy between the Sacred and Profane in Csíksomlyó • István Povedák / “Give me some beautiful holy images that are colorful, play music, and flash!” The Roma Pilgrimage to Csatka, Hungary • Ksenia Trofimova / Minor Letnica: (Re)Locating the Tradition of Shared Worship in North Macedonia • Erika Vass / Radna: The Holy Shrine of the Multinational Banat Region (Romania)

Photo by Erika Vass

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M A R C R O S C O E L O U S TA U

Catholic Pilgrimage and the Politics and Pragmatics of Place-Making in Eastern Europe

Marc Roscoe Loustau is Managing Editor of the Journal of Global Catholicism and a Catholics & Cultures contributor. As a scholar of religious studies in the context of personal, social, and economic change, his research has focused on Catholicism in Eastern Europe where, after decades of official state atheism, there has been a prominent resurgence of religion in public life. Loustau has taught courses at the College of the Holy Cross on contemporary global Catholicism. He holds a Th.D. from Harvard Divinity School.

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T

he Editors of the Journal of Global Catholicism are pleased to publish the second of two Special Issues featuring material from the conference, Lived

Catholicism from the Balkans to the Baltics, held at Pázmány Péter Cath-

olic University in Budapest, Hungary in March 2018. Co-sponsored by Pázmány

Péter Catholic University and the Catholics & Cultures program at College of the Holy Cross, the conference featured presentations by more than thirty scholars

studying aspects of Catholicism in the region stretching from the Baltics to the Balkans. Ksenia Trofimova presented a version of her article, “Minor Letnica: (Re)

Locating the Tradition of Shared Worship in North Macedonia,” along with pa-

pers published in our Winter 2020 Special Issue titled, “Hungarian Catholicism: Living Faith across Diverse Social and Intellectual Contexts.”

In this issue, Trofimova is joined by three scholars who conduct fieldwork at national and multi-ethnic Catholic shrines located in Romania and Hungary. Zsofia Lovei, an art historian and ethnographer based in Budapest, Hungary, writes about

the Hungarian national shrine at Csíksomlyó in the Szekler region of Transylvania, Romania. István Povedák, Associate Professor at Moholy-Nagy University of Art

and Design in Budapest, Hungary, draws on individual and team ethnographic

research at Csatka, Hungary, where a Catholic shrine now hosts a major annual pilgrimage gathering for members of the ethnic Roma community. Finally, Eri-

ka Vass, who curates a branch of the Hungarian Open Air Museum serving the Transylvanian Hungarian minority community, writes about the Radna shrine in

Romania’s Banat region where Catholics have long venerated the Virgin Mary regardless of their nationality and native language.

The authors take up this issue’s core theme of place-making as both a strategic political and also contingent pragmatic process, and move outward to highlight the forms of lived ethnicity that emerge at Catholic shrines. In the fields of history, anthropology, and religious studies, the region called Eastern Europe has long

been a privileged site for studying nationalism as a framework for mobilizing ethnicity in political movements and policymaking. In this Special Issue, the authors

explore how Catholic devotional practices give rise to both marked and muted performances of national identity. The authors’ use of ethnographic participant VOLUME 4 ISSUE 2 | SUMMER 2020

4 | Catholic Pilgrimage and the Politics and Pragmatics of Place-Making in Eastern Europe:

Overview & Acknowledgments

observation provides unique access to the minute and subtle social interactions in

which pilgrims negotiate ethnicity as a way of perceiving the world. They reveal that pilgrimage as a ritual practice is contingently related to pilgrims’ perception that people, places, and rituals are distinctively “Roma,” “Hungarian,” “German,” and so on.

Whether and how one perceives communities, sites, and devotions is worked out

in pilgrims’ socially, politically, and historically situated interactions. For instance, Povedák writes that, “Roma and Gadjo [non-Roma] pilgrims are still separated today, and even have different attitudes toward certain places and rites of pilgrimage.” Just the same, both Roma and non-Roma pilgrims often have opportunities

to become aware that non-Roma visitors continue to make the annual pilgrimage to Csatka. Non-Roma pilgrims, in particular, utilize categories of consumption and

devotion to express their historical awareness of Csatka’s changing ethnic profile and work on their experience in light of new and emerging ritual practices they observe among their fellow pilgrims.

Trofimova’s article also opens a window onto the lived experience of Catholics

and Muslims at worship together. Her article demonstrates the variety of pilgrims’ responses to rituals that have become identified with either Christianity and Islam.

These negotiations far exceed reductive tropes in pilgrimage studies that describe either communitas or conflictual relations at shrines. While some Muslim pilgrims

complain privately that shrine officials only offer yellow candles for sale—white

candles are associated with devotion to Muslim saints and yellow with Christian saints—most Muslim visitors consider it more important to perform the ritual act of lighting a candle than publicly complain. Others even go so far as to interpret

yellow candles as a way to honor the shrine’s Catholic identity. These choices and

explanations emerge in the process of contingent and situationally determined negotiations:

For a number of Muslim pilgrims, the use of yellow (i.e. Christian) candles

serves as a kind of “tribute to” the rules that are set by the “owners” of the place.

For others, the choice does not matter since this holy place unites all devotees in their conversation with God and the Virgin Mother, and implies blurring of the boundaries and devaluing of their visual markers.

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Marc Roscoe Loustau | 5

Trofimova calls these negotiations a form of “lived ecumenism” and provides a From the cover:

Women pilgrims wear

compelling description of the ways that Catholics and Muslims weigh the conse- head scarves to Mass quences of potential conflicts while engaging in shared and divergent ritual prac- at the shrine at Radna. tices at the Catholic shrine to Our Lady of Letnica in Skopje, Macedonia.

Lovei conducted fieldwork at the Csíksomlyó pilgrimage site, a Catholic shrine lo-

cated in an area of Transylvania settled by members of a Szekler Hungarian ethnic minority. Each year on the holiday of Pentecost, over 100,000 Hungarian pilgrims

from Hungary, Transylvania, and around the world travel to this shrine. Border changes following World War I integrated Csíksomlyó and the surrounding area

into into an expanded Romanian nation-state. Noting this history, Lovei high-

lights the collective existential experience of loss and grief that Magyars on both sides of the border feel as a result of the post-War border changes. This loss leaves a

profound mark on pilgrims’ experiences and colors the emotional dynamics of their performance of Hungarian national identity:

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Photo by Erika Vass.

6 | Catholic Pilgrimage and the Politics and Pragmatics of Place-Making in Eastern Europe:

Overview & Acknowledgments

It is worthwhile to consider that the annual journey and return to Csíksomlyó also acts as a festival of grieving and rejoicing, of cognitively purifying the perils of the past, of accepting the somber reality of divorce and alienation from the Motherland, as per the Act of Trianon following World War I.

Historical dislocation and loss, according to Erika Vass, are also central to the pilgrimage to the Catholic shrine at Radna in Romania’s Banat region. The Banat

region was once home to a significant German-speaking Catholic population. But

the vast majority of this community left Romania beginning in the 1970s. By mak-

ing a pilgrimage to Radna, they maintain their connection to the sacred center of their homeland. “Besides their religious motivations,” Vass writes, “these pilgrim-

ages focus on visualizing or temporarily recreating these now extinct communities.

The Germans who had moved to Germany from Sântana (Romania) in the 1970s symbolically rebuilt the pilgrimage site of Radna in their new home.”

This Special Issue comes as we are in the initial stages of transitioning the JGC to accept individual submissions of articles. These pieces give even greater momen-

tum to that effort. Indeed, the articles’ quality indicates that they would stand on their own in future issues of the JGC. My gratitude goes to Mathew Schmalz, the JGC’s Founding Editor, and Thomas Landy, Director of the Catholics & Cultures

program at College of the Holy Cross. Special thanks also go to Danielle Kane,

Associate Director for Communications at the Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J. Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture and Pat Hinchliffe, Assistant at the Rev. Michael C. McFarland, S.J. Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture.

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Figures for sale among the merchant tents in Csatka. Photo by Istvรกn Povedรกk.

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ZSOFIA LOVEI

Breaching Boundaries: Homogenizing the Dichotomy between the Sacred and Profane in CsĂ­ksomlyĂł

Zsofia Lovei is an art historian and recent graduate of the University of Toronto. Her research interests lie within the realms of Hungarian ethnography, most notably, with a pronounced focus on Marian pilgrimage sites within the Carpathian Basin.

Lovei evaluates concepts of space, place-making, as well as individual, and group identity formation, utilizing Geertzian methodologies geared toward efforts of auto-ethnography.

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Zsofia Lovei | 9

M

ary of Csíksomlyó, serves as the locus of sacrality at a Franciscan Ro- Figure 6.

Saturday, May 23, 2015,

man Catholic shrine in Transylvania, Romania.1 Hundreds of thou- 2 p.m.: Conclusion of sands flock to the site annually at Pentecost in the form of a mass the High Mass at

Csíksomlyó. Photo by

pilgrimage. Magyars, both from the motherland and from the wider diaspora, Zsofia Lovei. journey to Csíksomlyó, a village alongside the city of Csíkszereda in the county

Harghita, in order to take part in a High Mass in the undulating Nyereg valley above the village every year, on the Saturday that precedes Pentecost Sunday. Lo-

cals, pilgrims and tourists amalgamate to form a whole that is both homogeneous, and heterogeneous at once. An allegedly miracle-working statue of Mary as the

Woman Clothed in the Sun with roots in the Renaissance period and also, linked with the invasion of the Turks, functions as the single most important point of the

site. Those who journey to this Marian site of devotion will oftentimes do so on

foot, horseback, wagons, or by cycling, on motor bikes, in personal cars, taxis, small buses, coach buses, and finally, by air. Ever still, those who cannot be present in the 1

Csíksomlyó (Şumuleu Ciuc) is located 3 km northeast of Csíkszereda (Miercurea Ciuc), which is the capital of Harghita county in Transylvania, Romania. From this point forward, all settlement names and terms will be accounted for in Hungarian. This site is linked with a popular folk legend dated to 1567 (at Pentecost), when an alleged battle occurred between the army of János Zsigmond, Prince of Transylvania and local Catholics in the mountain region near Csíksomlyó. According to the legend, the battle turned favorably for the Catholics of Gyergyó, Csík, and Kászon. The victory was attributed to Mary of Csíksomlyó: Id. Cserey Farkas: Geographia Mariana Regni Hungariae, 1780.

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10 | Breaching Boundaries: Homogenizing the Dichotomy between the Sacred and Profane

in Csíksomlyó

physical, tangible sense will “attend” the High Mass, and other Masses throughout the year as witnessed in the Basilica Minor church of Csíksomlyó, virtually, via

the Internet on the YouTube channel of the site (Csíksomlyó Élő), through public broadcasting on Bonum TV, or Mária Rádió (Radio Maria). Serving as the most

prodigious site of worship for the Magyar peoples, Csíksomlyó unites the masses, notwithstanding historical, political, religious, cultural and national tenets, events of life, and ways of being. This paper seeks to speak to this unfolding, and re-folding of layers, whereby the past becomes intimately connected once more with the

present and indeed with the future for Hungarian Roman Catholics in, around, and in relation to Csíksomlyó.

In contouring the silhouette of the past, Hungarian pilgrims at Csíksomlyó collect, protect and appropriate remnants of cultural relics, both on site and off site in order to stimulate and nourish the myth-making process of the reunification of dis-

placed Hungarian territories and inhabitants during the feast of Pentecost. Rituals, rites, performances and gestures implemented and enacted in relation to the mir-

acle-working statue of Csíksomlyó provide an avenue for the sacred and profane

to co-exist naturally alongside one another in order to accommodate and account for the geographical and spatial disparity between contemporary Hungarian settlements. The pilgrimage at Pentecost unifies an otherwise now heterogeneous com-

munity through the fabrication of quasi-Utopian fictions that seek to render the

boundary of collective historical memory malleable and fluid. The pilgrimage site itself, and in particular the Nyereg valley between the Kis Somlyó and Nagy Somlyó mountains, acts as a temporal, transient liminal state where participants and

pilgrims crystallize their allegiance to their Hungarian roots and ties, by dynam-

ically engaging with the flow of tangible relics, and intangible conceptualizations of the Divine. During the triad of Pentecost, the entirety of this sacred topography blooms, metaphorically and literally into a pulsating body of shared symbols that

act as adhesives to unite the multitudes in a provisional heterotopia. What makes this space quintessentially sacred for Hungarians is that it yields the capacity to become a storehouse of dreams where fueling fantasies of a reunified Hungarian

state becomes possible—albeit only temporarily. Only the Divine could be capable

of such a feat in the eyes of the displaced Hungarians, many of whom still consider JOURNAL OF GLOBAL CATHOLICISM

Zsofia Lovei | 11

this land to be ethnographically, historically, and conceptually Magyar.2 Thus, during the Pentecost pilgrimage to Csíksomlyó the Nyereg valley where the High Mass takes place serves as an othered space, a heterotopia, which stands apart

from other spaces very near to it—however, this only happens to this degree once a year. That is what makes the Pentecost pilgrimage so very peculiar.

Pilgrims have a one-time-a-year chance to unite with one another in a space that is open to everyone yet is capable to being wholly different on one weekend, and most significantly on one day of the year. Hungarians from all around the world, from

Trianon-effected regions and from mainland Hungary can finally meet with one another—as a homogeneous whole that is at once also heterogeneous. This site be-

comes othered temporarily on the day of the Feast. It is different. The land becomes different. The united presence of the pilgrims, who otherwise form a heterogeneous mix, changes the site for a short while. And remembering how that site changes

within those days, and indeed hours, can change the way you view sacred topog-

raphy. That memory of togetherness, in a site that is distinct and othered from all other sites around it, is incredibly captivating, regardless of religious affiliations.

It is worthwhile to consider that the annual journey and return to Csíksomlyó also

acts as a festival of grieving and rejoicing, of cognitively purifying the perils of the past, of accepting the somber reality of divorce and alienation from the Motherland, as per the Act of Trianon following World War I. Journeying, setting forth on

the pilgrimage is thus an act of making peace with the past, in some sense, recti-

fying the intergenerational pain of the descendants of all those witness to the Act of Trianon in 1920—on all ends of the spectrum. This crystallizes before, during

and directly after the annual pilgrimage to Csíksomlyó, at the most sacred feast of Pentecost, which occurs 50 days after Easter. Pilgrims weave their way onto the web of Hungarian sacred history by stepping out of the known of the profane, and

into the unknown territory of the sacred. The sacred begins at multiple conjecture 2

Magyar is the Hungarian word for the language and culture of those individuals who now reside in the Carpathian basin. The Magyar peoples are the descendants of Árpád, the Great Prince of the Hungarians (845-907 CE), who was the great grandfather of the first Roman Catholic king of the nation, Stephen I (975-1038 CE).

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Figure 9.

View of the Basilica Minor church of Csíksomlyó. Photo by Zsofia Lovei.

points, predominantly from the localized origin of the pilgrim, to the transporta-

tion mode they chose to utilize in order to gain access to the site, from the Hargita mountains of Szeklerland, to the border of the city of Csíkszereda, to the village

Csíksomlyó, to the 5 km road that leads to the Basilica Minor church, to the pews, onwards toward the miracle-working statue and ultimately, to the physical space

of the Nyereg valley. Much like Mircea Eliade’s pervasive concept of mythical and

sacred time, each of these boundary lines peels away a layer of profanity, where

pilgrims essentially parade their way deeper and deeper into a host of myths, and away from reality.

It is my incentive to formulate a functionalist, ethnographic, and anthropologically based application of methodologies found in the relevant literature pronounced

and proliferated by Clifford Geertz, Simon Coleman, John Eade, Michael J. Sallnow, Arnold van Gennep, and Victor Turner, after which I will turn to the work of

Michel Foucault. I will seek to address the need for the bodily materialization of

the ethereal, the pliable nature of the boundary between the sacred and the profane, the harmonious disparity of ethnic Hungarian groups and the heterotopic qualities of the site through a case study of my own fieldwork on site in May of 2015.

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I will examine and expand upon the rise, apex, and denouement of the process

pilgrims embark on in order to purify their pasts, materialize their delusions, participate in collective flow, and ultimately to physically touch the Divine by pay-

ing homage to the miracle-working statue of the Virgin. My main claim thus is that the pilgrimage to Csíksomlyó at Pentecost, and thereby the Nyereg valley and church where this gathering occurs, acts as an othered space—a heterotopia—

which is distinct from other spaces around it, because it is temporary but also has the capacity to “re-birth” in a sense, year upon year.

CHANNELING METHODOLOGY AND COMPOSITION Clifford Geertz, whose ethnographic stance on cultural semiotics shifted the paradigm of previous discourse within anthropological academia, consciously sought

to breed and dispense his contention that “culture is public because meaning is.”3

Within the field of anthropology Geertz adamantly vouched for the application of a more “descriptive analysis” of these meanings, rather than conducting tentative

scientific data to account for matters that should not be subjugated or limited by numerical empirical conditions that are subject to change. Geertz claimed that:

Doing ethnography is like trying to read (in the sense of “construct a read-

ing of ’) a manuscript—foreign, faded, full of ellipses, incoherencies, suspicious emendations, and tendentious commentaries but written not in conventionalized graphs of sound but in transient examples of shaped behavior.4

These shaped behaviors are best reflected in Geertz’ proficient, engaging and highly

detailed use of thick description, which he uses to show that social events, be-

haviors, institutions and processes should be translated contextually as opposed to formulating research from the outside in.5 3 4 5

Clifford Geertz, “Thick Description: towards an Interpretive Theory of Culture,” in The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 6.

Geertz, “Thick Description,” 5.

Geertz, “Thick Description,” 7. Here, it is particularly clamant to mention Carlo Ginzburg’s and Giovanni Levi’s conceptualization of micro-history, which is a late 20th century form of historical methodology that seeks to account for the macrocosm through case-study like ventures into the microcosm of a smaller unit of specialization.

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Geertz also maintains that one who conducts ethnography must be able to engage

in conversation with their subjects in order to adequately inscribe social discourse, accounting for what is seen, and not what is hypothetically known.6 Most salient is Geertz’ assertion that, “culture grows in spurts” where analysis “breaks up into a

disconnected yet coherent sequence of bolder and bolder sorts.”7 The main corpus

of this discussion will employ Geertz’ methodology of thick description through a

series and succession of recollections on events formulated based on emic analysis and participant observation.

The following dialogue on the raison d’être of boundaries and space in Csíksomlyó

draws on fieldwork conducted on site by Hungarian scholar Tamás Mohay who is an ethnographer at Eötvös Loránd University, in Budapest. Mohay's research on

Csíksomlyó is characterized by evocative and imagery-dense thick descriptions on

various aspects of the site. He remains the leading authority on the pilgrimage site of Csíksomlyó. In his field work, Mohay expands upon a broad range of firsthand

experiences he has with village dwellers who live in close proximity to the site.8

Rather than translating and transcribing these highly detailed avenues of discourse, I will, in Geertz’ terms, seek to “plunge more deeply into the same thing” using the ethnographic coverage of Hungarian scholars in the field, as tools for devising a

schematic conglomeration of cultural “spurts” that speak to address the function of space in and around Csíksomlyó.

Now let us turn to a thick description to set the stage for a more detailed analysis of the site, afterward.

6 7 8

Geertz, “Thick Description,” 10.

Geertz, “Thick Description,” 13.

The main highlights of Mohay’s research are meticulously accounted for in the form of a host of Hungarian publications. Vilmos Tanczos’ Csíksomlyó a népi vallásosságban (2016) is also of note, among several other publications he has published on the site. Hungarian scholars such as Lehel Peti, Károly Gaál, Krisztina Frauhammer, Éva Pócs, Sándor Soós, Ildikó Asztalos, Gyula Perger and most notably Gábor Barna have also sought to elucidate and unravel the apotheosis of the pagan female goddess and the Blessed Virgin as accounted for in the Carpathian basin from historical and ethnographical standpoints, in recent years.

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TOWARD A THICK DESCRIPTION: EN ROUTE TO THE FATHERLAND In the early morning hours on Thursday, May 21, 2015 at around 6:55 a.m., I hastily made my way to Népliget Bus Terminal which is located on the southeast side of

Budapest, adjacent to the Danube by approximately two kilometers. I was instructed to bring two separate bags, one of which was a small suitcase and the other, an

oversized travel backpack with my sleeping bag and other essentials. I scrambled to find the coach bus where my fellow pilgrims were waiting under the discretion

of the middle-aged spiritual director of the journey who was waving a red flag in welcoming participants, who numbered around 40. I did not know anyone prior to my participation in this pilgrimage, which was run and coordinated by the Jesuits

of the Párbeszéd Háza (The House of Dialogue) in Pest. The cost of the entirety of this four-day leaving, arriving and returning schema was 11,000 forints, which is

around 35 Euros. The age, sex, occupation, and level of attachment to the church

were greatly varied amongst my fellow pilgrims. The youngest participant was a

timid little elementary school boy who came with his aged grandmother from out of town. Many pilgrims were not based in Budapest and traveled from various city centers neighboring the capital. The pilgrimage commenced with a joint recitation

of a prayer that we read off of a Jesuit prayer card with a highly idiosyncratic image of a smiling crucified Christ. This prayer was followed by a five-minute period of

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Figure 2.

Saturday May 23, 2015: Pilgrims rise with the dawn and travel by foot through the Hargita mountains. Photo by Zsofia Lovei.

16 | Breaching Boundaries: Homogenizing the Dichotomy between the Sacred and Profane

in Csíksomlyó

silence when pilgrims were asked to try to formulate sound intentions for embark-

ing on the journey to Csíksomlyó. After which, a brief consultation of need-toknow facts was relayed in order to persuade and encourage pilgrims to obedience

and compliance with all rules, especially with regards to meeting time constraints.

Recital of the morning Lauds hours of the Divine Office concluded this introduction while we drove toward the northeastern border of Hungary and Romania. We arrived at our destination around 7 p.m. that night, to Székelyudvarhely (Odorheiu Secuiesc) in Romania, where we stayed in a Protestant school gymnasium across from the main square of the town. Mass was held on the rough cement of the

schoolyard around 9 p.m. under the stars. We slept on old mattresses and thin poly-

foam sheets on the hard floor of the gymnasium and were awakened early in the morning on Friday to begin our 50 km walking pilgrimage to Csíksomlyó. This was

fundamentally the point of no return. Our supplementary bags were tagged and

thrown onto gigantic trucks in haphazard fashion, in the courtyard of the Roman Catholic church in Székelyudvarhely where other traveling groups had gathered

to take part in a Mass to start the journey. The weather was unbearable, and the sun was scorching hot on our backs. Many pilgrims were completely sunburned by the end of the day when we finally got to a remote barn in the middle of the

forests of the Hargita mountains. Other pilgrimage assemblies joined us at this

point, where every square meter of the barn was covered in backpacks, provisions, sleeping bags and tired pilgrims. Lights were out by 10 p.m., and the barn gate was

shut tight in fear of brown bears and other predators. At 3 in the morning, we were asked to start getting dressed and to prepare ourselves for the culmination of our walking pilgrimage, which began at around 4 a.m. Flashlights and radiating night

lights guided our way as close to 1,000 pilgrims accounting for merely a portion

of the pilgrims traveling from Székelyudvarhely alone, formed a thin line of two pilgrims per row, on the right edge of the curving, twisting road leading directly

to Csíksomlyó. (Figure 2) As dawn refracted into day, the bitter cold of the forest air gave way to a wide sweeping green valley that overlooks Csíkszereda and Csík-

somlyó. In order to enter the city, pilgrims must go directly down on the mountain road leading from the Hargitas and from that point forward proceed eastward

on a five-kilometer road that leads to the Basilica Minor church of Our Lady of JOURNAL OF GLOBAL CATHOLICISM

Zsofia Lovei | 17

Csíksomlyó. The threshold of the sacred thus became quite clear at this point, as Figure 5.

Saturday May 23, 2015,

all individuals on that road were going toward the same loca sancta, driven in the 1:30 p.m.: Recitation of exact same direction. Swept with the crowd, I lost contact with my pilgrim peers the ancient Szekel anthem in the Nyereg

and proceeded to make my way through the bazaar like madness that erupts on the valley. Photo by Zsofia road to Csíksomlyó every year at Pentecost. The street sharply turns towards the right behind the church to several dirt paths that lead up to the valley between the

Kis Somlyó and Nagy Somlyó, where the most difficult is designated as a Calvary, where the Stations of the Cross are laid out in vertical formation up the side of the Kis Somlyó mountain. At this point, I should have felt incalculably dismayed at the prospect of being lost in a crowd of the 250,000 other Hungarians walking up the side of the mountain at exactly the same time. However, I knew that if I followed

the crowds up the mountain, make my way past the Roma groups on the periph-

ery of the circle of pilgrims, and on to the main field of the congregational space, I would be able to see the waving flag representing the town of Székelyudvarhely and somehow find the rest of my pilgrim peers. And so it came to pass.

The High Mass at 12:30 p.m. was celebrated by György Jakubini, who was the

Hungarian archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia) at the time. Eucharistic stations marked the sidelines of the congrega-

tional space in the Nyereg valley, where ample opportunity for Holy Communion was continually given to the pilgrims on site in little white tents. This is wholly VOLUME 4 ISSUE 2 | SUMMER 2020

Lovei.

18 | Breaching Boundaries: Homogenizing the Dichotomy between the Sacred and Profane

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unconventional, as the consecrated Blessed Sacrament was made accessible prior to the official communion rite of the Eucharist. The Mass was followed by a series of nationalistic anthems, concluding with the ancient Szekel anthem that seeks to

supplicate Our Lady of Csíksomlyó. This anthem acts as the summit to the Mass, and the pilgrimage itself, where nationhood and cultural ties mesh with folk piety and the undeniably human nature of the site.9 (Figure 5)

That crowds eventually dispersed and returned to their respective dwellings, hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts, tents or campsites, at which point half of my pilgrimage group chose to go back to the barn we had slept in the night prior, and the other

half chose to remain on site.10 Some pilgrims from my group slept outside in the valley, some in the Salvator chapel on the north side of the Kis Somlyó mountainside and others, like myself, slept inside the Basilica Minor church in order to

witness the night vigil unofficially led by a Csángo woman who eerily sang invoca-

tions to the Virgin until 7 a.m. the next morning. (Figure 8) Responses, hymns and prayers were sung by the pilgrims lying on the floor and in the pews, as a means of giving thanks to the Virgin and resting in her motherly care throughout the bitter 9

The Ancient Szekel Anthem. Also, further research beckons scholars to wed Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s sonorous concept of flow with the temporal ecstasy of the pilgrims during the High Mass at Pentecost. Please see the anthem (in Hungarian) below. The English translation is the work of the author:

Ó, én édes jó Istenem oltalmazóm, segedelmem.

Vándorlásban reménységem, ínségemben lágy kenyerem.

Vándorfecske sebes szárnyát, vándorlegény vándorbotját, Vándor székely reménységét, Jézus áldd meg Erdély főldjét.

Vándorfecske hazatalált, édesanyja fészkére szállt.

Hazajöttét megáldotta Csíksomlyói Szűz Mária.

Oh, my sweet and gracious Lord, have mercy on me, You are the light of my refuge, the warm bread of my hunger.

Heal the wing of the wounded stray swallow, staff of the stray youth, Stray Szekel Hope, Jesus, we implore, bless the earth of Erdély.

For the stray swallow has found its way home, its mother has landed on the nest, Its homecoming is blessed by the Virgin Mary of Csíksomlyó.

10 Many groups that journey to Csíksomlyó focus on tourism, more so than on spiritual renewal. After the Mass in the afternoon, many pilgrim-tourists will enjoy Szekler delights with their fellow group members and take part in great feasting after returning to their respective accommodations.

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night. The following morning, which I began with a Mass inside the church I had Figure 8.

Saturday, May 23, 2015,

slept in, we embarked on our journey back to the barn we had slept in on Friday 9 p.m.-7 a.m.: Resting night in our coach bus. Group members either walked or took the bus back to with Christ and the

Virgin: A contemporary

Székelyudvarhely, where pilgrims participated in a final Mass and finally began the Gethsemane. Photo by journey back to Budapest.

MATERIALIZING THE SACRED Let us now consider these events in light of the following theoretical conjectures.

Simon Coleman asserts that there are three major themes in cogitating the “materialization of Mary” throughout sacred history in the Roman Catholic Church.11

Firstly, Coleman addresses the divine presence that surfaces in images of Mary, where the representation is likened to the prototype.12 This raises the issue of

presence. As there are no first grade primary relics from the body or clothing of the Virgin, where does one adequately locate the prototype of these subsequent 11 Simon Coleman, “Mary: Images and Objects,” in Mary: the complete resource, ed. Sarah Jane Boss (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 398.

12 Coleman, “Mary: Images and Objects,” 398-399.

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images?13 For Hungarians, and in specific for the Sze-

kler people, the miracle-working statue at Csíksomlyó has essentially become a kind of prototype, one of the

closest material links to the Virgin, who is unanimously known to be the Patrona Hungarai, Our Lady Queen

of Hungary.14 This is communicated visually and spa-

tially within the confines of the placement of the statue within the Basilica Minor church. The second theorem raised by Coleman is the process by which a human-

made object becomes sacred where he expands upon

the medieval tendency to ascribe authorship to mira-

cle-working relics to St. Luke or other saints through

an archeiropoietic progression.15 The fact that there is no recorded artist or patron responsible for the producFigure 1.

Prayer card with an invocation to Our Lady of Csíksomlyó

tion of the miracle-working statue is significant in light

of these conjectures. Here, anonymity, allows room for personalized and collective myth-making, which is what in turn renders the statue, at the very least ostensibly

holy. The third premise proposed by Coleman, is that each duplication and imitation of the image of the sacred morphs the source with its copy based on similar-

ity of forms or through direct, physical contact with the original relic or image.16

Secondary images which are laced onto souvenirs such as prayer cards, rosaries, statuettes, key chains, books, newspapers, magazines such as Csíksomlyó Magazin and Csíksomlyó Üzenete, framed pictures of the statue, liturgical calendars, inscribed

clothing, mugs, cutlery, jewelry, wood carvings and postcards act as direct continuations of the miracle-working statue.17

13 Coleman, “Mary: Images and Objects,” 397.

14 Zsofia Lovei, “The Vehicle of Pilgrimage: Spanning the Geographical and Ideological Horizons of the Way of Mary through Mariazell to Csíksomlyó,” Saeculum 10, no. 1 (2015): 49.

15 Coleman, “Mary: Images and Objects,” 399. Archeiropoietic is a term utilized to describe images or objects that are untouched by the hand.

16 Coleman, “Mary: Images and Objects,” 399.

17 Please see Figure 1. The prayer to the Virgin Mary of Csíksomlyó is found on souvenirs, such as prayer cards.

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Thus, Mary of Csíksomlyó exuberates a divine presence because she acts as the ultimate Hungarian prototype of the Virgin—she is divine for believers even though

her statue was fashioned by a mortal. Ultimately, her image serves as the origin of a plethora of images that now circulate globally, through literary sources, phys-

ical objects, and the World Wide Web, where the localization of ethnic Szekler

Mariology has now been translated and transcribed into modern avenues. Here, it is imperative to relay the residency of the statue and what strategic theological

function this precise placement entails for pilgrims, priests and clerics. The impres-

sion of voyeurism in place when one waits for their turn to approach the statue, when sitting in the pews or when viewing the daily online video Mass on the site’s

YouTube channel18, shakes this momentary sense of confinement and safety when viewed from the outside, gazing inward.

TEMPORAL COMMUNITAS: WELDING DISPARATE FORMS Building on this train of thought, let us now consider the four distinct variants of pilgrimage types outlined by Victor Turner, defined as historical, syncretistic/ar-

chaic, medieval and post-medieval or post-Tridentine.19 The latter is characterized

by an apologetic stance that denotes an exceedingly devotional tone, which acts as an unswerving response against the progressive secularization and de-Christianization of the Post-Darwinian world.”20 Turner frames pilgrimage as an an-

ti-structural phenomenon that is conducive to creating pockets of communitas, a

state of unabridged, unmediated union or solidarity with individuals who gather communally, notwithstanding their societal roles and social classes.21The reason

for this temporary surge of normative communitas, as described by Anne-Marie 18 Csíksomlyó Élő is a live stream of daily Mass at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChrkbh0y4ut-mELoCTRPR_Q. Sigmund Freud’s notion of the scopic drive outlines this phenomenon, where the viewer as well as the pilgrim are forced to see one another and worship with the knowledge that the union with the statue is in reality, not entirely closed off.

19 Victor Turner and Edith Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture (New York: Colombia University Press, 2011), 18.

20 Turner and Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, 18.

21 John Eade and Michael J. Sallnow, Contesting the Sacred: The Anthropology of Christian Pilgrimage (New York: Routledge, 1991), 4. Here, anti-structural refers to a state of being where conventional societal rules and statuses are thwarted for the purpose of achieving a higher state of being through ascent to the Divine.

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Losonczy, is because of an increasing fervor of patriotism that followed the fall of Communism in Romania under Nicolae Ceausescu and the end to the Romanian

Revolution in 1989.22 Losonczy, who also utilizes thick description in illustrating her field work on site, describes Csíksomlyó as an imaginary “fatherland” that is a

border-free “patriotic space” where language is the main force of association and not religion per say.23 It is this potent force of common language that supersedes all other forces.

In essence, during the annual triad of the Pentecostal pilgrimage, being Hungarian, having Hungarian roots, or rather, knowing how to speak Hungarian overrides being Roman Catholic or religious. Conceptually and physically, albeit temporarily, re-filling the land with Hungarian voices and presence—being together once a year—is more important for pilgrims, tourists and nationalists than debating over

theological, cultural or political disparities. This yearning stems from intergenerational wounds and trauma that have not been completely mended. It is imperative to note that these intergenerational wounds are experienced by all who reside in the area, regardless of ethnicity or religion. This is precisely what convolutes this

space. Nevertheless, for Hungarians, the annual pilgrimage to Csíksomlyó at Pen-

tecost acts as temporary bandage over this wound. It calls to be addressed annually in order for the mythos of the unified Hungary nation and state to live on. Many of those who attend the pilgrimage are not even remotely religious or of the Roman

Catholic faith. Even though these individuals might have been baptized, their cur-

rent practices denote that they do not wish to align themselves with the Catholic Church. However, many such individuals who are baptized but no longer believe

(or consider these rituals dated) still attend the pilgrimage. They take part in the rituals because it is the proper, acceptable thing to do as a Szekler and as a Hungarian. Moreover, some merely consider it as an exciting weekend program because of

the inexhaustible spectrum of market vendors who line the street leading up to the church. (See Figure 3) There is absolutely no breathing space, there are lines every22 Anne-Marie Losonczy, “Pilgrims of the ‘Fatherland’: Emblems and Religious Rituals in the Construction of an Inter-Patriotic Space between Hungary and Transylvania,” History and Anthropology 20, no. 3 (2009): 265. Victor Turner, “Liminal to Liminoid, in Play, Flow, and Ritual: An Essay in Comparative Symbology,” Rice University Studies, 60, no. 3 (1974): 80.

23 Anne-Marie Losonczy, “Pilgrims of the ‘Fatherland,’” 266, 273.

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where, and the entire 5 km road is packed with these stands and those who sell their merchandise. There are vendors who sell Hungarian tour-

istic objects, musical instruments, pottery, folk costumes, hats, and all manner of memorabilia.

There are also stands that sell cheap toys, there

is sometimes a small carnival halfway to the site, there are balloon stands, cotton candy bars, book

stands, bungee jumping, free water bottle stands,

and all manner of food and drink opportunities.

This ultimately leads to a very strange conglom-

eration of pray and play, where pilgrims sing with trembling lips as they march toward the mira-

cle-working statue alongside young and old, who

are merely happy to finally have a day off to hike in the valley. The ultimate consequence is that at

the end of the Saturday that precedes Pentecost when the major ritual Mass takes place in the

valley, drunks line the street alongside a mass of disabled, homeless, oftentimes Roma people

who beg their way through the crowds. Even here, there is no divide. These indi-

viduals co-mingle with the pilgrims and there is a brief, illusionary idealistic sense of harmony in this dismembering of time, space, nationhood and geographical boundaries.

OPULENCE AND PROFUSION John Eade and Michael J. Sallnow’s contestation model, which portrays the locale of

pilgrimage sites as a “realm of competing discourses” lurches this Turnerian model, but does not necessarily negate it.24 Eade and Sallnow defend that ritual spaces, and

thus pilgrimage sites, are capable of “accommodating diverse meanings and prac-

tices” where the multiplicity of discourses that frame the meaning of a site allow for 24 Eade and Sallnow, Contesting the Sacred, 5.

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Figure 3.

Saturday, May 23, 2015, 11 a.m.: Market vendors and the crowd of pilgrims. Photo by Zsofia Lovei.

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a “variety of clients” to receive what they need.25 Here, the emphasis is placed on the capacity of those respon-

sible for orchestrating rituals in sacred spaces, of being able to accommodate a plurality of pilgrims and believ-

ers.26 This throng of forms, people, places, ideologies and objects is widely accounted for in Csíksomlyó and is vi-

sually, physically palpable through a close examination of boundary lines on site and through a relay of the discrepancies between pilgrims and attendees.

The spatial field of the Nyereg valley is compartmentalized and sectioned off with loose string barriers that slice the congregation into twelve major sections that

divide the arena by various regions in and near Szeklerland. Beginning on the west side, which is the first barrier the pilgrim is faced with upon arrival in the valley, the Figure 4.

Strategic placement of heterogeneous Hungarian groups in the Nyereg valley.

groupings are as follows: Mainland Hungarians, Felcsík,

Gyímesek, Háromszék, Sepsi-Barcaság, the last of which extends into the forest

that protects the valley on the south end. (Figure 4) The groupings on the east

end of the valley are dedicated to pilgrims from Gyergyóalfalu, Gyergyó, Alcsík, Kászonok, Udvarhely, Maros and Nyárad. These labels do not account for the fact

that many non-Szekler pilgrimage assemblies such as Calvinists and Lutherans

from Hungary; Unitarians from Transylvania; Orthodox and Roman Catholics from Croatia, Hungary, Austrian Burgenland and Slovakia; Greek Catholics from Serbia; and tourists from the Hungarian diaspora join various sections based on

predetermined and organic choices made on the part of the pastor, priest or religious leader responsible for his/her assembly.27

I personally sought to not only witness, but more so to experience the implication, repercussions and connotations of the following factors while on site in May of

2015: average age, financial status, sale of souvenirs, dress code, presence of Roma, 25 Eade and Sallnow, Contesting the Sacred, 14-15.

26 Eade and Sallnow, Contesting the Sacred, 14-15.

27 Anne-Marie Losonczy, “Pilgrims of the ‘Fatherland,’” 272-273.

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presence of Romanians, potentiality for alcohol/drug overconsumption, crime/

theft, police attendance, wheelchair accessibility, use of technology, opportunities

for cleansing, and the placement of lavatories. My conclusions posited that there was vast diversity between pilgrims, tourists, beggars, clergy, vendors, citizens, village dwellers, and nationalists who attended the pilgrimage.

My findings suggested that there was no average age or class as both ends of the spectrum were represented prodigiously and profusely. The market vendors were predominantly youth and young adults (14-30), many of whom were wearing traditional Szekel red and white folk clothing. Many of these vendors come back

on an annual basis in order to profit off the site and have never actually been to the Mass in the valley because of their work obligations. Roma presence was customary, few people spoke Romanian, casual dress was favored, police attendance

only occurred at the periphery of the site and at major intersections, there was no

wheelchair accessibility, there was moderate use of technology, portable lavatories were used, and one indoor station for cleansing was noted. There was considerable

alcohol over-usage, predominantly in the evening hours of Saturday, May 23, 2015.

IN LIMBO: PAINTING AND PEELING CURTAINS OF HETEROTOPIA Delving deeper into these theoretical trajectories, let us now consider Arnold van

Gennep’s tripartite model for rites of passage. This model consists of three phases: separation, transition and incorporation.28 The first phase incorporates an inversion

of the profane where those taking part step out of the known in order to detach themselves from their previous social statues.29 During the second phase, which

van Gennep coined as the “limen” stage, participants step over a threshold into a period of limbo, a descent or rise to an in-between state that is wholly ambiguous.30

The third phase, re-aggregation or incorporation represents the return to society where subjects are allocated new positions based on their experiences.31 Turner’s re-contextualization of the liminal phase outlined by van Gennep relies heavily on 28 29 30 31

Turner, “Liminal to Liminoid,” 56.

Turner, “Liminal to Liminoid,” 57.

Turner, “Liminal to Liminoid,” 57 Turner, “Liminal to Liminoid,” 57

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the discourse pronounced by Mircea Eliade on the nature of the raison d’être of pilgrimage and the nature of the sacred space.32

Turner establishes that the in-between stage of a pilgrimage is marked by a release

from structure, the deconstruction of statuses, simplicity of behavior and dress, communitas, ordeal, reflection and rituals.33 As a point of departure from van Gen-

nep’s liminality, Turner addresses the nature of obligation and how the voluntary aspect of modern religious pilgrimages indicate the need for a new category, which he defines as the anergic-ludic liminoid.34 Correspondingly, Michel Foucault’s di-

gression on heterotopias fits within this paradigm in which he delineates five major points of departure in defining such “counter-sites” that are akin to utopias in ideology but differ in that these are places that do in fact exist in geographical space and measured time.35

Foucault’s first supposition is that all cultures have heterotopias, which can be categorized as either crisis-based or geared toward spaces designated for individuals

involved in deviance.36 Csíksomlyó is a heterotopia of the former, which Foucault describes as a privileged, sacred or forbidden place that is reserved for individuals in crisis.37 The Act of Trianon in 1920, and the Treaty of Paris in 1947 stripped

Hungary of 232,000 square kilometers and 13,370,000 inhabitants whose descen-

dants now make up the Magyar diaspora in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Austria, the Ukraine, Serbia, and most significantly, Romania.38 This essentially forced 62%

of the population under foreign rule and rid the country of 72% of her geographical territory.39 5,265,000 ethnic Hungarians were displaced into what now constitutes Romania in 1920.40 These displaced Hungarians, who live in the region surrounding Csíksomlyó, in Szeklerland, are still in a state of crisis because of forced 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

Eade and Sallnow, Contesting the Sacred, 6.

Turner and Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, 34-35.

Turner and Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, 34-35.

Michel Foucault, “Of Other Spaces, Heterotopias,” Architecture, Mouvement, Continuité 5 (1984).

Foucault, “Of Other Spaces.”

Foucault, “Of Other Spaces.”

Ottó Légrady and Gusztáv Lenkey, Justice for Hungary!: The cruel errors of Trianon (Budapest: Nyomatott Légrady Testvérek , 1930), 6.

39 Légrady and Lenkey, Justice for Hungary, 14.

40 Légrady and Lenkey, Justice for Hungary, 14.

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assimilation, prejudice, injustice, further displacement within Transylvania due to

efforts on the part of the Romanian government to homogenize the vast disparities in population demographics, and post-generational trauma.

Foucault’s second conjecture is that existing heterotopias, like Csíksomlyó, can function in a myriad ways in different periods of time and history.41 Subsequent to the fall of Communism in 1989, Csíksomlyó has witnessed an absolute revival

and proliferation in terms of size, organization and involvement of secular forces that have consequently propelled the local tourism industry exponentially. Prior

to this, the pilgrimage at Pentecost was mainly attended by and arranged by locals

who lived in Csíkszereda and Csíksomlyó.42 Thus, the site, and thereby the miracle-working statue have histories, and must be viewed in light of these discrepancies. This is an existing heterotopia that is organic, fluid, malleable, and subject to

change because it is witness to different time periods, and different pilgrims who have multifaceted agendas.

Foucault’s third premise is that heterotopias bridge several spaces that would oth-

erwise not be equated or aligned with one another.43 The co-mingling of the sacred and profane in Csíksomlyó addresses this precisely, architecturally and socially. The

markets and the consumer-ridden road lead to the sacred basilica minor church

and the sacred valley is left in the evening for relaxation in accommodations nearby.

Foucault’s fourth allegation is that heterotopias are linked to moments in chronologies, when members of society arrive at a point where they must break with traditional time.44 At Csíksomlyó, pilgrims are continually trying to build on the bank

of time, that is to say, extend the historical memory of the time before the Treaty of Trianon through the guise of the myth-making process. Here, language and

semiotic symbols pervade this enactment of re-appropriation, which in Foucault’s terms is like gathering materials for a museum of everything that was and remains

Hungarian in order to preserve it efficiently and make it readily available for use in the future.

41 42 43 44

Foucault, “Of Other Spaces.”

Anne-Marie Losonczy, “Pilgrims of the ‘Fatherland,’” 272.

Foucault, “Of Other Spaces.”

Foucault, “Of Other Spaces.”

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The final proposition Foucault raises is that heterotopias presuppose a series of

openings and closings, and moreover that these sites of limbo are not freely accessible. Csíksomlyó is predominantly attended by those who understand Hungarian, albeit to varying degrees. The ritualized opening and closing ceremonies

both within my own pilgrimage group and within the broader community of those gathered speak to Foucault’s notion of going in and coming out. These rituals are

oftentimes characterized by the recitation of prayers or participation in a Mass

rite. These formulaic spurts demonstrate that the Pentecostal feast at Csíksomlyó currently acts as a transitory, liminoid, heterotopic state that is fueled by surges of myth-making, rituals and rites drawn from the repository of memory on the part of nationalists and pilgrims alike.

HEMMING THE MARGIN OF THE SACRED: MICROCOSM VS. MACROCOSM Delving deeper into the layers of this state, I sought to find the sacred within the

sacred, the ultimate locus amoenus in Csíksomlyó that propels the manifestation of this currency of flow pervading the Pentecostal heterotopia every spring. I found

that the binary between the valley and the space between the Blessed Sacrament and the statue conflate the material, with the natural, the compact with the grandiose, the singular to the plural, the confrontational to the experiential, all of which position the pilgrim directly within the Divine.

Through a brief formal analysis, I will endeavor to elucidate these parallel themes.

The miracle-working statue in the Basilica Minor church in Csíksomlyó is notoriously known for answering prayers that are vocalized audibly and or written down with tremendous thought in a book with lined pages beside the right stairway

leading up to the statue on the south side of the apse in front of a set of doors that lead into the sacristy on the south wing.

Making the inanimate animate renders the relationship between the pilgrim and the Divine more accessible, more tangible and thus, corporeal enough to become temporarily potent. The statue is located directly behind and above the Blessed

Sacrament majestically affixed and encapsulated between the periphery of the most

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sacred space of the Holy Eucharist and the back wall of church, which marks the Figure 10.

Interior of the

material boundary of the unknown, and the potentially profane. Above the statue Basilica Minor Church is an image of the Holy Spirit, anthropomorphized in the shape of a dove amidst of CsĂ­ksomlyĂł altar and statue. Photo by

an array of golden beams protruding in circular formation mirroring the rays that Zsofia Lovei. project forward from the body of the Virgin. God the Father rests regally on a superfluous bundle of looping clouds that rise above the Holy Spirit. His burly arms

open in welcoming on either side of his robed torso. A thick sash on his right side flies behind his face, which is set against a gold triangle, symbolizing the intercon-

nectedness of the Trinity. Upon approaching the podium placed under the Virgin, the pilgrim becomes markedly shorter and smaller, in height and proportion to these figures.

The statue of the Virgin is the vision of the Woman Clothed in the Sun (Rev. 12:1). Adorned with a majestic three-tiered crown and long curly hair, she gently holds the infant Jesus on her arm, the moon before her feet, a halo of twelve stars

above her head, and a scepter in her other hand. Customarily, the pilgrim will

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kneel before the statue, recite the invocation to Our Lady of Csíksomlyó either to themselves or softly under their breath and will consequently rise and to the best of

their ability reach for the statue’s feet which stands on top of the head of Nestorius, the 5th century Archbishop of Constantinople who was condemned for the crime of heresy for his nefarious renunciation of the term Theotokos. Here, pilgrims will

oftentimes touch the statue with objects, including handkerchiefs, prayer cards, rosaries or even cellphones.

Scholar Marc Loustau considers how such items, which have been touched or

grazed by the Holy at Csíksomlyó, are oftentimes also connected to other sanctified objects from other Marian pilgrimage sites, such as holy water from Lourdes.45

These sacred items that have been touched by the statue are consequently taken

home and used by the pilgrim, or given to family members and friends who were not able to visit the statue in person. These objects are used as healing tools, mem-

ories, spiritual reminders, and as touristic tokens. These objects’ material reality is on the same level as humanity. Thus, the pilgrim, with his earthly objects, looks up to the divine.

This succession of power leading from the kneeling pilgrim to his rise up toward

the Virgin, who can only be touched if temptation vis-à-vis the head of a sinner is averted, proves to be mesmerizing and remarkably symbolic. The Virgin, here

holding the naked Christ child in her left arm, bows her head slightly to the left and stares off toward the south end of the church. The Holy Spirit follows, and

ultimately the gaze is led to the Father who looks directly downward and into

the eyes of the pilgrim. The statue of the Virgin is flanked by Saint Stephen of Hungary and Saint Ladislaw of the late medieval period on either end of the stairs

leading up and down the podium. The minute space between the corporeal body and blood of Christ and the miracle-working statue compresses and condenses the area around the pilgrim. This notion of feeling trapped between the living Bread of

Life and the tangible, miracle-working Mother of God allows for a brief moment

of solitude and peace. Some pilgrims feel so protected in this stance, that they stay 45 Marc Loustau, “Substituting Stories: Narrative Arcs and Pilgrimage Material Culture Between Lourdes and Csíksomlyó,” Journal of Global Catholicism, 3, no. 1 (2019): 102.

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in the niche for up to 10-15 minutes at a time when it is not a Feast Day or the

annual Pentecost pilgrimage, regardless of the continual lines that wait to approach

the statue. This delimitating of excess space can provisionally pacify the pilgrim, which enables them to feel temporarily safe because there is so little room between these two surges of sacredness.

In contrast, the breadth and spaciousness of the organic Nyereg valley allows for

communication with the Divine in a superlative way, on a macrocosmic level that pushes for collective flow that is both emotional and experiential. Most compelling is that the twelve grid sections are enclosed and bound by dense forests on the

north and south ends, roped wires on the east and west sides and the three curved alter at the north end. Encircling the crowd on mid-east, mid-west, and north-

east, northwest, and central boundary lines of the site are stations for receiving the consecrated Eucharist throughout the entire duration of the noon Mass on the Saturday that precedes Pentecost.

Read theologically, these pockets of the Divine form a clear circle around the con-

gregation in a physically, tangible, human way that in interim acts as a safeguard against disruption to this quasi-euphoric heterotopic state. Here, the microcosm

of the space in front of the Virgin, and the macrocosm of the Nyereg valley slice through political, geographical, ideological, and human boundaries and weave con-

ditional heterotopias onto one another, within the cosmic, pulsating whole of the site. Both microcosm and macrocosm place the pilgrim within the very heart of

the sacred and onto the breathing map of social and sacred history. This all begs the questions: Which time is the authentic time, in light of this sacred history? Is

there perhaps a moment when the site was more sacred than it is today? Does a site get more sacred with time, or does this diminish? Is this intrinsically linked

with nationalism and contemporaneous socio-cultural expectations, norms and ways of being? How does the physical visibility of the Virgin hearken back to the

past, and slice into the present through materiality and presence? These questions

might perhaps lead to further considerations, when examined in light of how the

site changes year by year, and will presumably continue to do so, most especially

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coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has pushed this sacred space into the digital sphere.

How do pilgrims, with the memory of past pilgrimages in mind, turn to this sacred

site that is—albeit temporarily—closed off ? The space inside the YouTube streams of the Franciscans at Csíksomlyó may very well serve as yet another heterotopia— an othered space which is distinct from the space evaluated in this article, and from other spaces in the area.

In essence, through the prolific rise and chimerical evanescence of the triad of Pentecost, pilgrims and tourists establish themselves within the body of sacred

salvation as witnessed through the niche of the Hungarian shared cultural past.

This temporal alcove of conflating forms allows for the unification of the wavering

Hungarian diaspora in a way that is spatially organized in an encyclopedic as-

semblage of heterogeneous geographical groups. Breaching geographical, political, religious, cultural, societal, and personal boundaries allows pilgrims to transitorily

bask in euphoria and witness the metaphysical yet wholly tangible materialization of the Divine.

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Foucault, Michel. “Of Other Spaces, Heterotopias.” Architecture, Mouvement, Continuité 5 (1984): 46-49.

Geertz, Clifford. “Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight.” Daedalus 101, no.

1 (1972): 1–37.

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in Csíksomlyó

_____. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1973. _____. “Thick description: Towards an Interpretive Theory of Culture.” In The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays, 3-30. New-York: Basic Books, 1973.

Geertz, Clifford, Richard A. Shweder, and Byron Good. Clifford Geertz by His Colleagues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.

Hetényi, János. A Magyorok Máriája. Budapest: Szent István Társulat, 2001.

Légrady, Ottó, and Gusztáv Lenkey. Justice for Hungary! The cruel errors of Trianon.

Budapest: Nyomatott Légrady Testvérek, 1930.

Losonczy, Anne-Marie. “Pilgrims of the ‘Fatherland’: Emblems and Religious Rituals in the Construction of an Inter-Patriotic Space between Hungary and

Transylvania.” History and Anthropology 20, no. 3 (2009): 265–280. https://doi. org/10.1080/02757200903112602.

Loustau, Marc. “Substituting Stories: Narrative Arcs and Pilgrimage Material Culture Between Lourdes and Csíksomlyó.” Journal of Global Catholicism 3, no. 1 (2019): 100-125. https://doi.org/10.32436/2475-6423.1050.

Lovei, Zsofia. “The Vehicle of Pilgrimage: Spanning the Geographical and Ideological Horizons of the Way of Mary through Mariazell to Csíksomlyó.”

Saeculum 10, no. 1 (2015): 46-63.

Macartney, C. A. Hungary and Her Successors:The Treaty of Trianon and Its Consequences, 1919- 1937. London: Oxford University Press, 1965.

Mohay, Tamás. “A Bukaresti magyarok a csíksomlyói búcsúban.” Acta Siculica.

Székely Nemzeti Múzeum. Sepsiszentgyörgy (2007): 677–696.

_____. A csíksomlyói pünkösdi búcsújárás. Történet, eredet, hagyomány. Nyitott Könyv-L’Harmattan, Budapest, 2009.

_____. “A népi vallásosságról.” Magyar Tudomány 99, no. 5 (1999): 535-548.

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_____.

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alapjai

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_____. “Erdély, a vallási sokszínűség és a türelem földje.” In A Szabadtéri Néprajzi

Múzeum Évkönyve 20, edited by Dr. Miklós Cseri and Endre Füzes, 61-78.

Szentendre: Szabadtéri Néprajzi Múzeum, 2007.

_____. “Hagyomány és hagyományteremtés a csíksomlyói búcsún.” Népi vallásosság a Kárpát-medencében II, 130-147. Veszprém, Hungary, 1997.

_____. “Vonzáskor

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Végh, Janos. “How European is Hungary?” The Hungarian Quarterly 198, no. 3 (2010): 152-156.

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36

ISTVÁN POVEDÁK

“Give me some beautiful holy images that are colorful, play music, and flash!”

The Roma Pilgrimage to Csatka, Hungary

István Povedák is a cultural anthropologist and researcher of religious culture. His Ph.D. dissertation analyzed Hungarian celebrity culture from the folkloristic and religious studies’ perspective (2009, Eötvös Lóránd University, Budapest). His books and articles analyze different types of modern mythologies, everyday neo-nationalism, ethnopaganism and Romani culture. He has been serving as the President of Hungarian Cultural Anthropology Association and the Network for Modern Mythologies. Currently he is an Associate Professor at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest.

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We arrive by car to the small village of Csatka, hidden among the hills of Bakonyalja, two hours from Budapest. We are in one of the isolated, depopulated and relatively

backward regions of Hungary. On a narrow bumpy road, police and bodyguards stop our car on the outskirts of the village. We came for the Roma pilgrimage on

Nativity Day like everyone else. They tell us where to go and charge us for parking.

Hundreds of cars are already standing in the mowed field on the hillside. Next to them are large tents, behind which a generator growls. It is producing electricity for

amplifiers. One band in each tent is playing music for the gathering crowd. Whiskey bottles are everywhere on the ground. Many in the crowd are already singing and

starting to dance. A little further away from the tents, people dressed for a celebration stand around a table set in the shade of trees. They are visibly affluent, members of

the Roma aristocracy. Later, among the merchant tents, we see them again. In the

hands of the women there are bouquets of gladioli and lilies, while the men carry

huge candles. Everyone is very elegant. The ladies in high heels, silk dresses, make-up, the men in suits, their sunglasses pushed over their heads, each has a glittering piece of jewelry. They are sharply separated from the older Gadjo [non-Roma] pilgrims in casual attire.1 They came for the same sacred rite, yet they behave completely differently. They experience holiness elsewhere and differently.

N

owadays, not only the pilgrimage itself, but also the study of contemporary tendencies and changes in the pilgrimage process are becoming

more and more popular. There are both religious and secular reasons be-

hind the “renaissance” of pilgrimages. One generator is obviously the exponential

growth of tourism industry, as a result of which religious destinations have also

gained outstanding popularity. The popularity of religious tourism has transformed

the environment of the most significant traditional pilgrimage sites, where new city districts with shops, restaurants and hotels have risen. In addition to traditional

pilgrims, homo turisticus religious (religious tourists), spiritual tourists, and merely experience-seeking tourists have appeared, but the attitude of the local commu-

nity has also changed in many cases.2 The pilgrimage seems to confront general 1 2

In the Romani language non-Roma are called “Gadjo.” Throughout the article I refer to non-Roma (in our case mostly Hungarian) pilgrims as Gadjo.

Boris Vukonić, Tourism and Religion (Oxford, New York, Tokyo: Pergamon, 1996), 13.

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The Roma Pilgrimage to Csatka, Hungary

religious processes and increasing at a rapid rate rather than diminishing. Not only are traditional pilgrimage sites attracting more visitors than ever before, but

new pilgrimage centers keep on emerging.3 While participation in church rituals

is declining in Europe, especially in the case of historic Christian churches, attendance at several pilgrimage sites is rising sharply.4 As a consequence—said Staus-

berg—the invention of pilgrimages has been an important Catholic response to modernity and modernization.5 There are several reasons behind the international

transformation and the boom in pilgrimages, but one of the main drivers and patterns of these is undoubtedly the growing popularity of El Camino to Santiago

de Compostela.6 As a result of “caminonization,” as Margry called the process, pilgrimages began to be promoted in several regions, and the success of the revi-

talization of the Camino has now spawned a range of other cultural routes based

on religious themes or containing significant links to religious themes such as the Baroque Route in France, the Via Francigena from Northern France to Rome, but pilgrims themselves began to consider the behavior depicted during the Camino de Santiago worldwide as a model.7 At the same time, pilgrimages can no longer

be interpreted exclusively within the framework of a particular religion. Pilgrimage

places are not only visited by adherents of a religion that is organically connected to the site, and the goal of pilgrims is not necessarily to make special contact with

the transcendent, to be released from their sins, to deepen in faith, and to be healed 3

Michael Stausberg, Religion and Tourism: Crossroads, Destinations and Encounters (London and New York: Routledge, 2011), 59. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203854785.

4 Mary Lee Nolan and Sidney Nolan, “Religious Sites as Tourism Attractions in Europe,” Annals of Tourism Research 19 (1992): 68–78, https://doi.org/10.1016/0160-7383(92)90107-Z..

5 Stausberg, Religion, 59.

6 For more information see Daniel H. Olsen and Dallen J. Timothy, “Tourism and Religious Journeys,” in Tourism, Religion and Spiritual Journeys, eds. Daniel H. Olsen and Dallen J. Timothy (New York: Routledge, 2006), 3-4.

7 Peter Jan Margry, “To Be or not to Be… a Pilgrim. Spiritual Pluralism Along the Camino Finisterre and the Urge for the End,” in Heritage, Pilgrimage and the Camino to Finisterre. Walking to the End of the World, ed. Cristina Sánchez-Carretero (Springer, GeoJournal Library 117, 2015), 175-211, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20212-9_8. Marion Bowman and Tiina Sepp, “Caminoisation and Cathedrals: Replication, the Heritagisation of Religion, and the Spiritualisation of Heritage,” Religion 49, no. 1 (2019): 74–98, https://doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2018.1515325. Thorsten Wettich, “‘Luther was here’: The Making of Lutherweg as a Spiritual and Commemorative Pilgrimage,” Journal of the Irish Society for the Academic Study of Religions (in preparation, 2020).

Stausberg, Religion, 61. Sánchez-Carretero, Heritage, 96.

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István Povedák | 39

spiritually or physically anymore. Even a pilgrimage dating back several centuries, such as El Camino, might become polyspiritual, attracting religious pilgrims, spir-

itual seekers, and non-believer tourists at the same time. That is primarily because the main elements of pilgrimage, such as retreat, silence, and personal contact with

the transcendent, are an integral part of contemporary spiritual and esoteric move-

ments,8 and also, inevitable kinship can be traced in the structure of tourism and

pilgrimage. As Paul Post mentioned, the popularity can be explained by the fact that “the journey is an open ritual form that can be filled in by a varied group of

pilgrims however they wish. It can be viewed as a quest for meaning, as a religious

undertaking, as a sports achievement, as therapy and a way of coping after a crisis, divorce, mid-life crisis, or as an intense experience of nature, art, culture, and the past.”9 It was already the Turners who mentioned that a “tourist is half a pilgrim, if the pilgrim is half a tourist.”10 In many cases, spiritual tourism destinations build

on a traditional pilgrimage site with a history of up to several centuries and add new layers of meaning. But “non-religious” and spiritual seekers, aiming to explore themselves better, also embark on “secular” pilgrimages.11 In addition to all this, the

venues of historical events, the former residence and tombs of popular politicians, writers, athletes, and celebrities are also becoming popular destinations.12 8

Adrian Ivakhiv, “Nature and Self in New Age Pilgrimage,” Culture and Religion 4, no. 1 (2003): 93–118, https://doi.org/10.1080/01438300302812. Kathryn Rountree, “Journeys to the Goddess: Pilgrimage and Tourism in the New Age,” in On the Road to Being There: Studies in Pilgrimage and Tourism in Late Modernity, ed. William H. Swatos (Leiden: Brill, 2006): 33-60. István Povedák, “From Attila to the Hearth Chakra: Postmodern Pilgrimages,” Acta Ethnographica Hungarica 59 no.

2 (2014): 371-388, https://doi.org/10.1556/AEthn.2013.001. István Povedák “A Pan-Hungarian ‘Vessel Ritual’ in Romania,” in Politics, Feasts, Festivals, eds. Gábor Barna and István Povedák (Szeged: MTA-SZTE Vallási Kultúrakutató Csoport, 2014), 121-135.

9 Paul Post, Philip Nel, and Walter van Beek, “Introduction,” in Contested Identities: Space and Ritual Dynamics in Europe and Africa, eds. Paul Post, Philip Nel, and Walter van Beek (Trenton: Africa World Press), 6.

10 Victor Turner and Edith Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Approaches (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978): 20.

11 Peter Jan Margry, “Secular Pilgrimage: A Contradiction in Terms?” in Shrines and Pilgrimage in the Modern World: New Itineraries into the Sacred, ed. Peter Jan Margry (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2008): 13-46.

12 For the overall analysis on these see Peter Jan Margry, ed., Shrines and Pilgrimage in the Modern World: New Itineraries into the Sacred (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2008), https:// doi.org/10.5117/9789089640116.

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The Roma Pilgrimage to Csatka, Hungary

Pilgrims pose for pictures before the Virgin in the church in the valley. Photo by István Povedák, 2017.

The pilgrimage of Csatka to be presented in this study also carries traditional religious and secular ethnic features at the same time, but it acquired its present syncretic form in a different way. The pilgrimage site that appeared at the end of the

19th century—at the time of the apparitions in Lourdes—suddenly became popular in Hungary, attracting Hungarians, Slovaks, Germans and Roma at the same

time. As a result of the historical changes, first the Slovaks and then the Germans

disappeared, and by today, the always quiet and abandoned forest chapel of Csatka, a previously multi-ethnic pilgrimage site, becomes the “capital” of the Roma once a

year. Roma come from all parts of Hungary, but also from Slovakia and Transylvania to the “Virgin Mary of Csatka,” to the—as often referred by pilgrims—“Gypsy

Csíksomlyó,” in order to drink from the miraculous water of the forest spring, to wash their faces in the water, or to take some home for those who were not able to come.13 While the social influence of the Catholic Church in Hungary has

been gradually weakening since the communist takeover in 1947 with a steady de-

cline in Mass attendance and the number of those who profess to be religious, the 13 Presumably after the First World War, when Hungary lost its territory inhabited by Slovaks, and as a result of German deportations after the Second World War, only Hungarians and Gypsies remained who could attend the pilgrimage. Csíksomlyó [Şumuleu Ciuc in Romanian] is the most popular pan-Hungarian pilgrimage place in Transylvania, Romania. Despite the fact that Csíksomlyó is located roughly 400 miles from the Hungarian border, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims come from Hungary for the Pentecostal Mass every year. Today, Csíksomlyó has become one of the most important sacral centers of Hungarians, which represents the unity of the Hungarian nation torn apart by the Trianon Peace Treaty (June 4, 1920).

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popularity of the Csatka pilgrimage remains strong. This study presents the Roma pilgrimage to Csatka. In addition to the general introduction, the research seeks to answer two main questions: a) why the previously local pilgrimage of the isolated small settlement became the most important ritual of the Roma in Central and

Eastern Europe; and b) what new, not necessarily religious traditions are unfolding in addition to (or instead of ) traditional religious rites and actions? Throughout the

paper I argue that the forest near Csatka—where non-religious rituals occur—is

a special place not only in terms of Roma religious identity but also in terms of Roma ethnic identity.

THE HISTORY OF THE CSATKA PILGRIMAGE If we want to introduce the brief history of the Csatka pilgrimage—apart from discovering the constant presence of the Roma as a curiosity or an exotic—we will not find any extraordinary event that would make us stand out from the 19th-

century pilgrimage sites. This, like all other places of pilgrimage, was made a place

of worship by the people as a result of a grassroots movement. The spring water believed to be healing in the valley, the Virgin Mary apparitions, the crowd sud-

denly drifting there waiting for a miracle, and the doubts of the church office all are typical.14 Facts, sure knowledge, vague details, and legends intertwine in the case

of the Csatka pilgrimage as well. On the one hand, the formation of the modern

pilgrimage is accurately recorded by day. The historical sources—the work of the cantor and teacher of the village, and the report of the parish priest of Csatka to

the bishop of Veszprém—precisely describe the beginnings. According to these, on August 21, 1862, in the afternoon Archangel Gabriel appeared to the hermit József Csöbönyei who lived in a cave dug by his own hand next to the spring in

the wooded-hilly valley and informed him that the Virgin Mary would appear at the spring the next morning. Upon hearing the news, the people of the village, led

by the cantor, marched from the church in Csatka to the well in the woods at 8 o’clock in the morning, where the hermit was kneeling waiting for them. After a short singing and prayer, three human shadows appeared, with a yellowish crown 14 For more details see János Bárth, “A Katolikus magyarság vallásos életének néprajza,” in Magyar Néprajz. VII. Folklór 3. Népszokás, Néphit, Népi Vallásosság, ed. Attila Paládi-Kovács (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1990), 371.

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The Roma Pilgrimage to Csatka, Hungary

on the middle head, and then smoke rose from the ground. Those standing nearby not only saw the shadows and the smoke, but also smelled heavenly scent.15

Spontaneous pilgrimages then began immediately, first from the surrounding set-

tlements and then from the wider region. Religious popular devotional literature telling the miracle of Csatka, published almost immediately in thousands of copies in Hungarian and German, are well known. The long-rejected, ambivalent attitude of the Catholic Church can also be well traced.16 In the absence of an official res-

olution, pilgrimages were initially banned and attempts were made to prevent the printing of books, however, the bishop of Veszprém, seeing the determination of

the local faithful, authorized the construction of a chapel next to the well in 1863, which was consecrated on September 8, 1864. Several episcopal circulars were is-

sued against the pilgrimage in Csatka, highlighting the ”scandalous abuses” that took place there, and emphasizing again and again that “there is no shrine fortified

and recognized as such in Csatka, but only a simple chapel in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary.”17 It was not until 1962, at the centenary of the vision of the hermit

Csöbönyei, that Csatka received the officially approved pilgrimage place title from the bishop of Veszprém. In addition to historical events, the names of the hermits

living next to the holy well since 1862, the architectural design of the place, the expansion of the chapel, the makers of the sculptures and frescoes and the time of their making are also known.18

Besides, more data is unknown and surrounded by legends. It is true that the hermit Csöbönyei dug a cave with a church permit in 1861 next to a well that had long

been considered miraculous, but the memory of the previous healings is preserved

15 The events and the subsequent visions and miraculous healings were recorded by the cantor of the village. See Márton Takáts, A csatkai szent kut és kápolna eredete, s az ott történt csodák és látványosságok hű leirása (Győr: Sauervein Géza, n.d. [1862]. The minutes of church examinations are published in Gyula Perger, “A hívő nép és a kételkedő egyház. A csatkai csoda egyházi vizsgálatai,” in Liturgikus Örökségünk 21, ed. Iváncsó István (Nyíregyháza: Görög Katolikus Hittudományi Főiskola, 2017), 189-238.

16 See Perger, A hívő, 192-211.

17 The circular letter of the Bishop of Győr on October 10, 1911. Litterae Circulares Venerabilem Clerum Almae Diocesis Jauriensis (Győr, 1911).

18 Most of them were faithful believer laymen who lived ascetic life.

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by only a few obscure legends.19 We also have incomplete data on the changes that took place during communism and socialism. The communist state authorities

did not ban the pilgrimage but tried to strengthen the profane part, the entertain-

ment, instead of the sacred one. At that time, the proliferation of chain swings, target shooting, alcohol counters, and the strengthening of secular entertainment

was generally observed at the pilgrimage sites. Attempts were made to trivialize, “enchant” the actors and events associated with the place, with articles published in the press. However, the popularity of the Csatka pilgrimage remained unbroken. In 1941—two months after Hungary entered World War II—tens of thousands of pil-

grims have been reported, and a crowd approximately of the same size can be seen in the famous scene of the 1966 movie How the Trees Run which authentically repre-

sented that year’s Csatka pilgrimage.20 Twenty thousand pilgrims in 1972 and eighty

thousand in 1979 (probably exaggerated) were reported by the local paper, and even today the number of pilgrims is estimated at 10-15,000, far beyond the number of pilgrims and religious tourists arriving at most pilgrimage sites in Hungary.21 How-

ever, we do not know exactly how long the Roma have been present in Csatka, and when and why the pilgrimage became dominantly a Roma, ethnic ritual.

ROMA AT THE CSATKA PILGRIMAGE The first precise, ethnographic description of the pilgrimage of Csatka was given

in 1940 by the well-known Hungarian ethnographer of the time, Aurél Vajkai.

In a study published in the columns of the journal Ethnographia, he had already 19 It is said that in 1792 a blind man named Vilmos Meizler was healed here. Aurél Vajkai, as well as the “Minutes of the Csatka Investigation,” dated 1865 (See Perger, A hívő, 221-222.), noted that the parish priest of the neighboring Súr had been watching pilgrims and miraculous healings for 26 years. “He has been watching this place since 1837 and says many patients have come here who drank from the water, washed their painful limbs and knelt in front of pictures hanging on tall beech trees.” See Aurél Vajkai, “A csatkai búcsú. Adatok a népi orvosláshoz,” Ethnographia 51, no. 1 (1940): 51.

20 Márta Pereszlényi, “Adatok a csatkai búcsúhoz,” Ethnographia 50, no. 1 (1941): 284-285. Pál Zolnay’s film How the Trees Run was released in 1966. Its most famous scene depicts the protagonist in a mass of ten of thousands in the Csatka pilgrimage. The interesting thing about the scene is that it was not recorded in advance, but spontaneously, improvised between the pilgrims, which makes it of outstanding documentary value to us.

21 Zoltán Györke, “Csatka igazi arca,” Dolgozók Lapja (April 8, 1972): 4. The newspaper’s correspondent reported 15,000 cars and 5-600 buses in the 300-resident settlement. See Vilmos Wér, “A csatkai búcsún,” Dolgozók Lapja (September 16, 1979): 7.

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The Roma Pilgrimage to Csatka, Hungary

reported that Roma had always been present at the event since the pilgrimages began. According to Vajkai, “the most striking colors for the already vivid image of the ritual are given by the insatiable gypsies gathered there […] Ever since they

held a pilgrimage in Csatka, the gypsies have always been here. Here, the Gypsies

of Transdanubia meet, get to know each other, discuss their affairs, hold gypsy engagements (including four or five) once a year.”22 However, he did not mention

either why the pilgrimage became the most important ritual of the year for the Hungarian Oláh Roma, making the isolated, depopulated small settlement the “capital of the Gypsies” once a year. Asking among the pilgrims about the origin of

the Roma pilgrimage, we were able to record several legends and guesses. On the one hand, as a folklorized version of historical events, it is widespread among Roma

that the first miraculous healing at the source actually happened to a Roma man.

That is, Csatka was originally a sacred place and rite connected with the Roma.

Therefore, this story adds to the significance of the place in particular, as Roma basically have little or no sacred places associated with Catholicism.23 The forest near Csatka is therefore a special place not only in terms of their religious identity

but also in terms of their ethnic identity. “By 1862, there was a gypsy boy who had

been blind since his childhood. He came, drank from the spring water, and was healed. He was the friend of the Count’s son. And he built it in 1863 and patented

this place. And so it became a very big, famous shrine to weep our sorrows here, and our joy […] And then they came here and they call it gypsy pilgrimage, because

it’s about the gypsy boy, it’s about a blind gypsy child, about an eighteen-year-old boy and that is why this shrine became famous.” (54-year-old-woman from Pápa)24 Others suspect the symbolic return of the ancient, nomadic way of life behind the

presence of the Roma. The proximity of nature, camping in the woods, making music and reveling with family members and friends around the campfire really

allow them to relive nomad traditions and tribal-ethnic frameworks. “Csatka is so

in the woods, they make fires as if they were camping. It has become an ancient 22 Vajkai, A csatkai, 63.

23 The most important pan-Roma pilgrimage site is Saintes-Maries-de-la Mer in France that was built on the cult of St.Sarah.

24 Mogyorósi heard a different version of this, in which Mary appeared to an Oláh Gypsy woman. See Mogyorósi Ágnes, “A csatkai cigánybúcsú,” Erdélyi Múzeum 76, no. 1 (2014): 66.

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tradition for them to come here for several generations. Their ancestors also camped Holy Mass celebrated by the bishop of

in forests, setting fire. Here, even in the ‘cursed years,’ the party was allowed in the Veszprém. Photo by István Povedák, 2017. evenings, not at any other pilgrimage site.” (50-year-old-man from Pápa)25 Bishop János Székely, the emblematic figure of the Hungarian Catholic Church’s pastoral mission to the Roma, considers it especially important that during pil-

grimages Roma relive and experience the freedom of their former nomadic way of life and the closeness to nature.26 Therefore, the fact that the participation of Roma at the pilgrimage of Csatka on September 8 is more significant and important than any other pilgrimage in Hungary is presumably not only the consequence of its re-

ligious nature. It is conceivable that in the middle of the 19th century, when visions, Marian apparitions, and pilgrimages abruptly multiplied, miraculous healings actually took place with Roma in Csatka encouraging them to participate. Like the

Germans, Slovaks, Hungarians, the Roma were also able to get involved thanks to this Durkheimian “collective effervescence.” It is very likely that in the second 25 “Cursed years” refers to the Communist era in public speech in Hungary.

26 János Székely, Cigány népismeret. Te del o Del baxt! (Budapest: Szent István Társulat, 2010): 76.

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half of the 19th century, the Roma who were still nomadic appeared at the same time as Roma who were already settled but thought of migration as an ancient

tradition, with nostalgia. And the pilgrimage, in addition to being a religious rite,

could also provide a good disguise for otherwise unauthorized Roma gatherings, fairs, revelations, and marriage rites held according to ancient Roma customs.27 Several official sources even from 1938 prove that the authorities were in trouble

with a huge crowd of Roma arriving for the pilgrimage, so they tried to keep them out of the rite by force, because, as they write, “Gypsies appeared en masse with an

official permit, partly with their own car, partly with the help of transporters, and

scandalous rites were held there under the guise of performing spiritual exercises.

This gathering is mostly used by the gypsies to get young gypsy bachelors to get

acquainted with the gypsy girls, to commit wild marriages […] to steal, rob and

commit bodily offenses on the way […] special care should be taken to ensure that the stray gypsies or other stray groups cannot get even to the close vicinity of

the place.”28 In her study, Mogyorósi provides a different explanation. According to this, the pilgrimage in Csatka was a pilgrimage of the poor, which meant that pilgrims belonged to the lower social strata. Because of this, the Roma were not stigmatized, did not feel like outsiders, and were not discriminated by other pilgrims of Gadjo origin.29 However, this assumption does not explain why in other pilgrimage sites, which were also attended by the poor and—to a lesser extent—

Roma, a similar process did not take place and why only Csatka became a Roma pilgrimage site and even “the” Roma pilgrimage site they have been visiting for

generations. Furthermore, historical sources also attest to the fact that the Roma

and the Gadjos always celebrated the pilgrimage separately and in different ways.

In 1940, Vajkai was clearly saying that Hungarians, Germans, and Slovaks had set-

tled in one part of the meadow next to the forest, while Roma were camping at the 27 Since the Middle Ages, the Hungarian authorities have had problems with the fact that the Roma people, especially the Oláh Gypsies, insisted on their own tribal legislation. Roma legislation, i.e.

Romani Kris, did not operate on the basis of state laws, which is why such gatherings of Roma were forbidden since the reign of Queen Maria Theresa (1740-1780). Similarly, marriages held in the forests, according to ancient Roma custom, were also forbidden. See more Kamill Erdős, “Cigány törvényszék. Romani-Kris” Néprajzi Közlemények 4, no. 1-2 (1959): 203-215.

28 Decree of the vice-comes of Szombathely from January 1938. See Vasvármegye Hivatalos Lapja, (Szombathely, 1938): 5-6.

29 Mogyorósi, A csatkai, 66.

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other end. Moreover, from today’s point of view, he expressed his opinion rudely

and intolerantly for a folklorist, saying that “Five hundred or a thousand gypsies are shouting, flashily colored foreign bodies in a unified crowd of ten thousand.”30 Separation, segregation and the lack of common celebration was perceptible even then, and it is no different today.

Roma and Gadjo pilgrims are still separated today, and even have different atti-

tudes toward certain places and rites of pilgrimage. This can be observed in their behavior on the pilgrimage site, in the use of space, and of religious rites. Unlike “traditional” Gadjo pilgrims a Roma pilgrim does not arrive in a community of

devotees with flags singing traditional religious hymns. Although some Roma or-

ganizations and religious communities organize bus rides, most Roma today arrive by car and with family. Many come in convoys and settle in the meadow on the

hilltop with their children, parents and grandparents, and set up tents. Usually they arrive on Saturday morning, but there are several who arrive a day earlier: “Already on Friday, and they bring the two cauldrons [for cooking outside]. The Roma po-

litical leader [voivode] also comes from Orosháza and is waiting for friends and relatives.” (50-year-old-man, Pápa)31

Upon arrival, their first stop is the tents of the merchants set up along the road from the car park to the valley, where they purchase the candles and the Virgin

Mary-shaped holy water containers. Then they visit the Chapel of John Paul II,

the so-called “Gypsy chapel” that was built for the crucifix made of cherry wood, taken in 2003 by Roma pilgrims to Rome, and blessed by Pope John Paul II.32

The cross was made at the request of the National Minority Gypsy Self-Govern-

ment by István Hegedűs, a gypsy woodcarver, who also modeled the corpus on

30 Vajkai, A csatkai, 63.

31 Orosháza is at the opposite end of the country.

32 Mogyorósi notes that the chapel was built for the Gypsies by the National Gypsy Self-Government.

From a liturgical point of view, however, it does not fulfill the original function intended for it.

There is no altar in the chapel, only in the middle of the crucifix, behind it are pictures of John Paul II and the Virgin Mary, while around the walls are photographs of a visit to the Pope with prominent figures of the National Gypsy Self-Government. Mogyorósi, A csatkai, 58-59.

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Pilgrims buy candles to light in front of the chapel. Photos by István Povedák, 2017.

the cross from a Roma man.33 The inscription in Lovari is “Szuntona Dévla Zsutin

E Romen” (Holy God, help the Roma). The Roma pilgrims who come here light

the candles—an obligatory supply—here in front of the chapel. Each member of

the family also lights one or more candles. Children light a smaller, adults a larger

candle often weighing several pounds and one and a half meters high. As a result, the melted wax from the constantly growing candles flows down the hillside like

white lava after a few hours. When they enter the chapel, the first thing they do is photograph the cross and then themselves. The younger ones post the pictures instantly on Facebook and Instagram. Many begin praying spectacularly in front

of the “candle forest” around the outdoor statue of the Virgin Mary. Then the next

stop is the church in the valley, where the women place new bouquets of flowers and vases in front of the altar, throw money in the moneybox, and then take family photos. Many of them start petitioning the Virgin Mary: “What I really like is that

Gypsies always kneel in front of the altar and pray to it in Gypsy language and it’s

so beautiful. They take the little children down to sanctify, to bless [the Virgin].”

(55-year-old-woman, Zalaegerszeg)

33 According to the Hungarian legal system minorities have the right to form local and national self-governments. The minority self-governments have the authority to maintain institutions in the areas of education and promotion of traditions and culture, as well as to establish minority media.

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For most of the Roma, participating at the pilgrimage is the only voluntary li- Roma take pictures in the "Gypsy chapel." turgical action during the year beyond which they do not enter the church gates. Many younger pilgrims

As a couple in their 60s from Kalocsa said, “We are Catholics. We don’t shy away will post them on social media. Photo by István

from the church. If there is something, we go. For example, if we have marriage Povedák, 2017. or baptism.” Therefore it is not a surprise that great number of Roma pilgrims do not behave according to the expectations customary in the liturgy. Especially

group baptism of four to five or even more children in the church represents that

a significant part of Roma pilgrims have different “Holy Mass culture” to Gadjos.

Instead of silence, it is common to talk to each other, comment on events, enjoy the reactions of the child to be baptized and even chew gum, which could make the rite sometimes a bit chaotic for the priest as well.

In Csatka Roma do not take part in the open-air Masses, except for the Saturday

evening Mass held in Lovari. If by chance the Mass is taking place, they neglect it

and walk quietly next to the rows of benches to the holy well. The only exception is the Lovari Mass, in which a “poster group” of Catholic Roma pastoral mission

usually provides guitarist church music with a Gypsy-ish atmosphere. The holy well is located behind the rows of benches, a few meters deeper. The elderly Roma

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Visiting the holy well is one of the main motivations for pilgrims to Csatka. Photo by István Povedák, 2017.

children’s face and eyes with the water, and refill their bottles. In fact, visiting the Virgin Mary and taking in the water of the holy well are the two main motivations—of a religious nature—among the Roma pilgrims. As a 47-year-old man

from Komárom, Slovakia said, “The first thing we did was come down to the well.

We dedicate ourselves first. We apologize to Saint Mary and our dear Holy God. We consecrate the house at home and everything else. Car, house, ourselves.” Sim-

ilarly, a 54-year-old man from Győr mentioned: “There is water in the car here as well.” And what do you do with that? “I consecrate the house, the children, my

grandchildren, I wish good luck to my house, all which is inside, and if something bad hits the house, I sweep it all with it.”

But we also met an informant who did not consider himself a believer; still he did

not question the miraculous power of the spring water of Csatka: “I do not believe in God, only in my own way, but in the Virgin Mother. I came on this pilgrimage

to accompany my family. Everyone in my family is religious except me. I only come

every year to take care of them. And so I can take miraculous water to heal from it.

I believe in the power of the miraculous water. We always take it home with many

big bottles so I can cure my strong migraine-like headaches.” (54-year-old-man, Tapolca) For Roma pilgrims, visiting the holy well closes the series of sacral acts.

Up from the well, they buy jewelry, ornaments, toys and clothes for the children,

and then the secular fun begins on the meadow next to the parking lot in the forest.

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THE SOCIAL DIVISION OF PILGRIMS AND THE REPRESENTATION OF HIERARCHY There is a huge tumult in front of the church, which does not diminish when you enter the building. Between the two rows of benches, a visibly wealthy Roma man in a white suit, holding a white hat in his hands, settles his large family. The women had

already placed their own bouquets of flowers in the vases. Each huge bouquet of gladioli was clearly visible. The grandmother dressed for the celebration in front of the

altar is holding her granddaughter, surrounded by her sons, her grandchildren with-

out exception, all in suits, ties, huge gold rings on several fingers, heavy gold chains around their necks. Each of them puts their own wife and children up the stairs in

front of the altar and tries to photograph them in the tumult with their smartphones, while the older man, who seems to be the head of the family, tries to set everyone up

in front of the altar for a common picture. Because of the busy and crowded family, no

one else can get close to the altar among the narrow rows of benches, but apparently they don’t even want to go there. They wait patiently or walk away. The middle part

of the church now belongs to the elegant family, as if the event was all about them.

They are appropriated as if a wedding photo was taken at a family event. And for them, now maybe it really is. A family meeting held on a sacred site, on the occasion of a sacred rite.

Although Csatka is regularly called the largest Roma pilgrimage in Central Eu-

rope and the second largest in Europe, we cannot say that the event is a pilgrimage for all Roma. It is not like the usual one-week ceremony and cavalcade in Saintes-

Maries-de-la Mer, which lists almost all Roma clans from several European countries, but mainly Oláh Roma arrive from Hungary and Slovakia (to a lesser extent

from Romania, Serbia). Thus, it is not the pilgrimage of all Roma, but it is popular mostly among the Oláh Roma, who still speak the Lovari (Roma) language and are the most active in preserving Roma traditions. There are significantly smaller num-

bers of Romungros (Hungarian Roma) who no longer speak the Roma language

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and don’t preserve traditions.34 It is likely that the number of Romungros may have declined sharply during the years of the communist dictatorship, which did not

prefer religiosity. In 1940, Vajkai even noticed that the Roma were not uniform

and that the urban musician Roma present at the pilgrimage looked down on and didn’t even talk to the silent, secluded, separate groups of Roma villagers, tinsmiths

and Lovari speaking Oláh Roma who were dressed in simple gray rags.35 However, a 1961 report, referring to the Oláh Roma, already pointed out that “the Gypsies here have the strata that cling to the old way of life: the people who travel from vil-

lage to village by horse-drawn carriage.”36 All this, of course, were not even noticed

by Gadjo participants for a long time, and the external, superficially judging “Gadjo gaze” is generally still unable to distinguish between the groups of Roma today.37

The social division of the Roma can also be clearly perceived during the pilgrimage. As we have seen, the poorest strata, for whom attending the feast is truly a

sacrifice, have been present from the beginnings in the late 19th century. In 1940, Vajkai even remarked that “the humble kolompárs [referring to Oláh Roma] do not even bark, quietly crouching separately. Hungarians also prefer to see them than

urban gypsies in loud, ornate clothes.”38 As an elderly man put it, “We have little fun throughout the year, we just work and save. But if we come to Csatka, we will

have a good time here. That’s why we save all year so we can honor the Virgin Mary here.” (Retired man from Slovakia)

The festive occasion is associated with shopping and spending money, even for the poorer Roma. The restraint of the ordinary and the festive roaring are sharp-

ly separated. While the poorer Gadjo pilgrims bring sandwiches with them, the Roma buy food and drink at the fair. Extensive spending of money can also be well 34 In Lovari (Romani) language, Romungro [Hungarian Roma] is called the most populous group of Roma in Hungary. Romungros, who make up roughly two-thirds of the Hungarian Roma, are more organically integrated into Hungarian society than the other Roma groups: they no longer speak Lovari language and do not wear traditional Roma clothing.

35 Vajkai, A csatkai, 63.

36 László Havasházi, "Ki esketett?" Dolgozók Lapja (September 16, 1961): 5.

37 It is worth noting at this point that the coexistence of Roma and Hungarians in recent centuries has created parallel societies in which the Hungarian majority has little knowledge of Roma cultures and their division.

38 Vajkai, A csatkai, 63.

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observed when buying gifts. As Szuhay pointed out, Roma interpret the require- A well-dressed family

poses for photos in the

ment to spend money during the pilgrimage as obligatory; they must come with church. Photo by István serious sums. It is a shame if someone eats from a bundle and doesn’t have enough Povedák, 2017. money to buy food and drink for themselves at the vendors.39 However, in addition

to the poorer Roma pilgrims, there is also the Roma aristocracy, who are visibly separated from the others. The ornate attire, the jewelry, the larger and more expen-

sive candles, the bouquets of flowers all are meant to represent their status. In the

eyes of “outsider observers,” especially for the perspective of “traditional” pilgrims, their exclusivity is often ambiguous and inconsistent with the values of the Catholic pilgrimage site. As a Gadjo pilgrim said, “You see not the crappy, poor Gypsy

here, but gentlemen Gypsies full of goldenseal rings! Some are pulled by the chain around their neck, there is so much gold on it!” (59-year-old-man, Pápa)

It is common among wealthy Roma families to bring a porcelain vase of flowers and sew clothes for the statue of Our Lady in addition to the usual offers. Every

year, five or six clothes made of silk, often with gold and pearls, are brought as a 39 Péter Szuhay, A magyarországi cigányság kultúrája: etnikus kultúra vagy a szegénység kultúrája?

(Budapest: Panoráma, 1999), 114.

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Shopping and spending money is part of the Roma experience. Photo

by István Povedák, 2017.

vow gift. As the giver expects the statue to be dressed in the clothes they donated, the statue must be redressed several times during the pilgrimage. In addition to

material gifts, money thrown into the moneybox is also a status symbol, although one of the organizers reported a decrease. As he said, “They spend more now at the

vendors up there than below at the church. There is a lot less money now, but that was not the case in the past.” (50-year-old-man, Pápa) Others said that there was a

family that had a crown made for the statue: “This statue of Mary, this shrine, the chapel were also built by the Gypsies, I know that, and the statue also has many

gold jewels that the Gypsies made for her, she also has a golden crown.” (41-yearold-woman, Szombathely)

The representation of social status with externalities is not a new feature, and naturally not only a Roma feature. The most expensive vehicle is a natural part of pros-

perity, which the Roma who come to the pilgrimage proudly emphasize without any modesty. In the 1930s, when the car was a gentleman’s luxury in the countryside, Vajkai had written that a member of the Roma aristocracy from Pápa (a town JOURNAL OF GLOBAL CATHOLICISM

István Povedák | 55

60 km from Csatka) traveled by car, to everyone’s amazement, and today several

people mentioned that there was an aristocrat who recently arrived in Csatka by private helicopter.40 Beyond these, the social hierarchy is well perceived not only in appearance but also in behavior. The rich Roma, the aristocrats, are separated from

the “ordinary” Roma. They do not contact them; they do not communicate with

them. When my Roma students in the research tried to interview members of the more moderate Roma family mentioned in the introduction, they were unsuccessful. They either looked through them, not answering them, or sent them away. As

Gadjo researchers, we might think that this kind of segregation generates negative

feelings in ordinary Roma, but that is not what happens. The situation is natural for both members of the Roma aristocracy and the rest of the Roma pilgrims. It can be

felt that the Roma pilgrimage for the aristocrats is not about meeting all the Roma, but about meeting their own social “caste,” their relatives, friends, other voivodes

and their families. At the same time, their presence is natural or even positive for other Roma, who find no objection to the expressive emphasis on luxury, as they all

pay a special attention to their appearance, their festive attire, so that everyone can

see their jewelry.41 Aristocrats are not contemptuous of other Roma, and similarly, the average Roma are not envious seeing aristocrats dining separately. Moreover, the aristocratic Roma’s adherence to traditions and participation in the Roma pil-

grimage show their adherence to ethnic identity. Later in the evening when the

party has already started up in the meadow, social differences might even fade in direct proportion to the intensity of nighttime revelry and the amount of alcohol consumed.42

SACRED AND PROFANE, PARTY AND ROMA IDENTITY Concerning the structure of pilgrimage place, Post emphasizes that “[t]here is no longer one center, one cultural zone, such as institutional religion, that is 40 Vajkai, A csatkai, 63. The Neo-Rococo Gypsy palaces built in several Romanian settlements—mainly in and around Bánffyhunyad—also serve to boast of the financial situation.

41 According to Szuhay, whom I do not completely agree with, the presentation of wealth is not directed at the poorer Roma either, but they want to show their success to the Gadjos and expect recognition from them. See Péter Szuhay, Sosemlesz Cigányország (Budapest: Osiris, 2012): 55.

42 Leonard Norman Primiano, “Vernacular religion and the search for method in religious folklife,” Western Folklore 54, no.1 (1994): 37-56.

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A table reserved for voivodes (Roma political leaders). Photo by István Povedák, 2017.

determinative in a certain situation. Now there is rather an a-centric perspective, the interaction of a plurality of zones. This diversity and complexity lead to extremely complex and ambiguous places, and thus often also to clashes. Every sacred

space is shared space.”43 His argumentation is well supported by the analysis of the

Csatka pilgrimage site. Few Christian sacred rites are known where the sacred and profane course of action would contrast as sharply with each other and divide the participants as much as the Csatka pilgrimage. The profane part here goes beyond

the unloading fairs usually found in pilgrimage sites, or the restaurants, shops, hotels that appear in transnational pilgrimage sites. On the one hand, since pilgrims

hardly visit Csatka on other days of the year, there is no permanent place of service here. On the other hand, the profane space and its events here are not just about eating and getting gifts, but binge drinking, dancing, and partying from dusk to

dawn. There are several larger tents set up in the meadow next to the car park, each with a separate band. As the pilgrimage to Csatka was never just a sacred rite for the Roma, but also a reunion place for families scattered in different parts of

the country (today different parts of the world), therefore, fun, singing and music have always been present according to memory. And due to the fact that there was

practically no Roma ritual—either sacred or profane—in the country where Roma

gathered on a similar scale, their other community affairs were also settled here for 43 Post et al., "Introduction," 6.

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practical reasons. Among the matters affecting the larger community, such is the

election of the voivode (rarely nowadays), and among the family matters choosing the bride, and even the maidens fair. And the two events provide a new explanation

for understanding why the richer Roma over-represent their wealth, and that the

ornate attire is not just for the religious event. According to these, the “maidens for

sale” had to wear festive clothes supplemented with a wreath of artificial flowers on

their heads not only because of the representation of wealth but also because this was the sign they were waiting for a groom.44 Maiden fairs in Csatka are becoming

rarer these days, but they were still common at the turn of the millennium. Several claimed that there had been no maiden fair in the last five to ten years, although one of our informants explicitly swore she had seen one more in person in 2015. An

article in a local newspaper in 1979 accurately described that a bride was married

to her husband for an average salary of roughly a year. First “visual inspection, then bargain on the girl, and cheering, screaming when the fair is ready.”45 “I raised the

money all year to come to the bridal fair. My son gets a good salary, he wants to buy, and if he succeeds, we’ll have a lot of fun. I have to get in with fifteen or twen-

ty thousand, too…” -How much does a bride cost? “Well, like a good horse. If it is beautiful and shapely, it can be 35-40 thousand forints.”46 -And will the marriage work? “It’s not the parents’ business. Somehow they’ll just come out.” -No trial

marriage? “Not then. That would bring shame to the parent. But the sale and handshake in Csatka is like the Tokaji Aszú in wine. So, brand.”47

The “successful” maiden fair was followed by a wedding in the woods, and later an

official state ceremony after returning home. An organic continuation of the forest wedding is the wedding party held in the meadow with music, dance, and naturally alcohol. From this point of view, we can discover an antecedent in these wedding rituals of today’s musical dance entertainments.

However, the passing of the maiden fairs and forest weddings resulted in the 44 Szuhay, A magyarországi, 114.

45 Wér, A csatkai, 7.

46 The average gross earnings in 1979 were HUF 3,877 per month. http://www.ksh.hu/docs/ hun/xstadat/xstadat_hosszu/h_qli001.html?fbclid=IwAR1cqN4gQKxRxGcmbVSUV7ps-Vq7gmZ3d9H7wxN0ID6xwZ1Un66D896Yo1w.

47 Wér, A csatkai, 7.

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Bands set up in different tents on the hilltop. The party lasts until Sunday morning. Photo by István Povedák, 2017.

emptying of the ritual. We are already experiencing a partially “meaning-lost” rites today, where the void caused by the disappearance of the weddings and the voivode

elections was filled by the celebration of the collective Roma identity and togeth-

erness. In the celebrating crowd, several Roma people wished “good luck, love, health, happiness, the blessing of the Virgin Mary to all Gypsies” sensitively and loudly, emphasizing with shouting.

Margry is right to mention that “[a]lthough pilgrimage was and still is basically an individual endeavor which does not generate inherent bonding among the trav-

eling pilgrims, pilgrimage can also generate strong manifestations of sociability which influence the pilgrimage experience.”48 However, in our case, the road to the pilgrimage place is not important anymore for the Roma, only the social dimension, the communitas that can be experienced at the place.49

This way live concerts mean more to the Roma than just mundane entertainment.

The performance of a nationally known Roma singer turns their concert into a

festival that strengthens and celebrates the Roma identity. As the Roma identity is lacking in the role models of historical heroes, Roma celebrities are considered to be one of the most important examples and orientation points.50 Famous celebrities 48 Margry, "To Be," 176.

49 Turner and Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture.

50 István Povedák, Színvak könyv. A cigány identitás mintázatai (Szeged: Szokeresz, 2019).

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like the singer LL. Junior, Kis Grófo, Gáspár Laci, or the YouTube stars of Gypsy turbo-folk music are role models who came from a difficult situation, but thanks to their persistent work, became successful. Moreover, as they proudly assume their

Roma identity they are seen as modern heroes who overcome the limits of discrimination, with whom all the Roma can meet face to face and have fun with at

Csatka. As there are no official, state-level memorial rites to nurture the identity

of the Roma, these are replaced by—among other things—the Csatka pilgrimage.

Similar to what Tim Edensor described in connection with banal nationalism, here too they experience and express their togetherness through popular culture in a semi-formal event, largely organized from the level of informal culture.51

However, the collective celebration of ethnic identity does not always elicit a posi-

tive evaluation among Gadjo pilgrims: “Unfortunately, my experience is that many people come to Csatka just for the party. Anyone who arrives with their Slovak

license plate car at half past two at night stops just above the tents, then has party, dances, gets drunk well, then goes home in the morning. It’s not because of re-

ligion. They call each other on the phone, ‘Come, Little Pere is playing here,’ or Csőrike and the Sztojka and such, they also come from Borsod [the opposite side

of Hungary]. They leave home even early in the evening to get here for the party.”

(50-year-old-man, Pápa)

THE LOCAL COMMUNITY AND THE PILGRIMAGE When folklorists and cultural anthropologists analyze pilgrimages, the researcher focuses primarily on the toolkit of the rite, the far-flung pilgrims, their motivations, or the often syncretizing religious elements, and primarily the curiosity are

observed. While in addition to the “guests,” the “hosts,” the attitude of the local

community to the arrivals, to the event itself, remain much more in the background.52 This is no different in case of Csatka either. In almost all cases, the re-

ports and reports in newspapers focus on the Roma crowd, their fun, their unusual, 51 Tim Edensor, National identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life (Oxford, New York: Berg Publishers, 2002) 52 Cristina Sánchez-Carretero, “To Walk and to Be Walked… at the End of the World,” in Heritage, Pilgrimage and the Camino to Finisterre: Walking to the End of the World, ed. Cristina Sánchez-Carretero (Springer, GeoJournal Library 117, 2015): 2. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20212-9_1.

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“extraordinary,” almost exotic nature, which practically corresponds to the Gypsy

stereotypes existing in the media and public opinion. However, the local com-

munity barely appears.53 One of the reasons for this is that the Nativity of Mary

pilgrimage has gradually been pushed out of the settlement of Csatka, and a crowd of pilgrims are just passing through the village and spending all their time at the chapel in the woods. On the other hand, after the change of regime in 1989, in

parallel with the general religious tendencies,54 the official church rituals such

as Holy Masses, baptisms and folk religiosity are also a declining attraction. The long-standing religion-preserving power of villages has diminished, village com-

munities are aging, and their population number is declining. There are fewer and

fewer parishioners and, let’s add, fewer and fewer young people, but more elderly residents and believers.55 While until the 1970s the Csatka people were actively involved in the pilgrimage, the pilgrims also entered the village fair. However, along

with the fact that the number of Oláh Gypsies became dominant among the pil-

grims, the rites accompanying the pilgrimage also broke away from the village and concentrated exclusively on the forest. Presumably, the situation would be different if Csatka had a Roma population.

While at the beginning of the 20th century there are still data that the villagers

also preferred to see the poorer Roma, by the 1990s the then-mayor of the village had already spoken of the pilgrimage as blessing the village with international fame and as a curse, as it requires a lot of energy and material expenditure. We may encounter a strikingly similar situation in the famous Les Saintes-Maries-de-la Mer

in France where—as Wiley notes—many villagers “regard the Romani pilgrimage

as an unwelcome invasion and occupation of their community.”56 Although, while the tourists there in turn compensate with spending their money in local shops and

restaurants, there is absolutely no tourist industry in Csatka. It is true that since 53 Gábor Bernáth and Vera Messing, Vágóképként, csak némában. Romák a magyarországi médiában (Budapest: Nemzeti és Etnikai Kisebbségi Hivatal, 1998).

54 István Kamarás, Kis Magyar religiográfia (Pécs: Pro Pannonia, 2003).

55 Kamarás, Kis. 56 Eric Wiley, “Romani Performance and Heritage Tourism: The Pilgrimage of the Gypsies at Les Saintes-Maries-de-la Mer,” TDR—The Drama Review 49 (2005): 137, https://doi. org/10.1162/1054204053971126.

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pilgrims arrive by car and bus, they have had to pay parking money, but a signifi-

cant part of the proceeds is taken away by cleaning up the rubbish and repairing the damage caused. A significant portion of the local population stays uninterested

away from the pilgrimage; they don’t rent outlets, and they no longer slaughter pigs for the occasion.

CONCLUSION The pilgrimage in Csatka is one of the few pilgrimage sites in Hungary, which in recent years has not become a local celebration, but attracts pilgrims on national

and even cross-border level. While in the first half of the 20th century it was a multi-ethnic (Roma, Hungarian, German, Slovak) pilgrimage site, from the 1970s

onwards the Roma character gradually became more dominant. The change can be attributed, partly to the general religious transformation in which the folk church that still existed in the 1960s, the traditional pilgrimage and folk religiosity that

were still active, lost their power to attract the masses. During socialism, the num-

ber of pilgrims gradually decreased in most of the pilgrimage sites in Hungary, however, in Csatka an ambivalent process could be observed. Due to the fact that

Gadjo folk religiosity has lost the power to create social solidarity that it previ-

ously had, the number of Gadjo pilgrims has narrowed and the pilgrimage today

activates only the elderly community of the surrounding settlements. In contrast, the communal rite of the Roma has continued to live on. It is very likely that with-

out the presence of the Roma, Csatka would be just one of the ever-thriving, but

now emptying pilgrimage sites visited by aging groups of believers. Apparently, pilgrimage moves other strata and differently among the Roma and the Gadjos.

While today the majority of Gadjo pilgrims are older and mostly female, all ages are present among Roma.

Together with the ethnic shift, the general character of the Csatka pilgrimage also

changed since the mid-20th century. Roma pilgrims consider different rites, spaces, actions, behaviors and symbolic forms to be of primary importance, and the pilgrimage itself is about something else for them at all.

The pilgrimage has a bipolar, well-separable sacral (purifying, protective, healing)

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The Roma Pilgrimage to Csatka, Hungary

Children overlook the area of the holy well at Csatka. Photo by István Povedák, 2017.

and secular (communal, identity-strengthening, entertaining) part in both place, the nature of rites, and ritual actions. However, the main motivation for participat-

ing in the pilgrimage is still the religious activities, which in the case of Roma exists in symbiosis with the strengthening of community cohesion. The all-night fun is

just an additional—but much – anticipated—element of this. The bipolarity of the site has disturbed and continues to bother mainly Gadjo pilgrims and clerics to this day while it has an identity-strengthening role for the Roma.

The quiet devotion, the place of prayer, the chapel, and the holy well are located in the valley below, the secular revelry, the music, the dance, the sale, the “drinking until

the morning” and the maiden fair took place on the hilltop. The pastoral theological potential of the pilgrimage, the organic involvement of the Roma in the sacred rites

was discovered by the Catholic Church only surprisingly late. In recent years, the Saturday evening Mass in Lovari language has become regular, with Roma musicians playing contemporary Christian Romani music in Lovari, which encourag-

es Roma to sing together and take an active part in the Mass. It is important to

mention that most of the Roma pilgrims know and believe in the legend of the Virgin Mary apparition at the holy well, but the vast majority of them are not attached to the church as an institution. They have a Catholic identity, but they partic-

ipate in church services only on extraordinary occasions. On other days of the year they do not attend Holy Mass and they do not know the liturgical precepts. Their

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attachment to the church is treated on a market basis. They show up once a year, making significant donations, buying gifts in exchange for hoping for a remission

of all their sins: “What we commit a sin all year, here we try to make amends for it.

This is the one day we spend here, it fills us with spirit and faith for the whole year.”

(47-year-old-man, Mezőfalva) It can be said they believe without belonging.57

The Csatka pilgrimage attracts all strata of Oláh Roma from the aristocrats to the poorest families. They all feel necessary to over-represent their wealth, feel pres-

sure to buy and consume at the event. In spite of the fact that the event highlights class divisions of the Roma community it does not cause conflicts. The pilgrimage to Csatka, in the words of Paul Post, is a real “vessel ritual” that—in addition to

the original, religious heritage—contains elements that strengthen ethnic identity, connected to politics or to entertainment. For the Roma, the role of pilgrimage in keeping the community together is significantly more pronounced than in any

other pilgrimage site in Hungary. While in the past, voivodes were elected here, today a meeting of regional Roma aristocrats is held almost every year, but Roma NGOs and sometimes politicians also represent themselves. At the initiative of a Roma NGO, the Chapel of John Paul II or as pilgrims generally call the “Gypsy

chapel” was erected. The Roma celebrities who perform small concerts during the

pilgrimage are also significant from the Roma ethnic identity’s perspective as—in

the absence of their own ethnic historical heroes—they are a primary orientation point for the Roma. As Roma cannot fully identify with Hungarian national hol-

idays, with the Hungarian national heroes, they experience their ethnic identity within the framework of a Christian religious ritual. This is made possible by their still sufficiently strong cultural-Christian identity.

In addition to its sacral function, the pilgrimage in Csatka is one of the most important Roma social gatherings of the year, a real Gypsy festival. As Aurél Vajkai put

it in 1940, “the crowd, the multitude, the unpredictable abundance of like-minded

people are the recipients; the sense of community, of belonging, flares up in the newcomer, which he has never experienced with such force.”58

57 Grace Davie, “Believing without Belonging: Is This the Future of Religion in Britain?” Social Compass 37, no. 4 (1990): 455-469. https://doi.org/10.1177/003776890037004004.

58 Vajkai, “A csatkai búcsú.”

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The Roma Pilgrimage to Csatka, Hungary

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bárth, János. “A katolikus magyarság vallásos életének néprajza.” In Magyar

Néprajz. VII. Folklór 3. Népszokás, néphit, népi vallásosság, edited by Attila Paládi-Kovács, 331-424. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1990.

Bernáth, Gábor and Vera Messing. Vágóképként, csak némában. Romák a magyarországi médiában. Budapest: Nemzeti és Etnikai Kisebbségi Hivatal, 1998.

Bowman, Marion and Tiina Sepp. “Caminoisation and Cathedrals: Replication, the Heritagisation of Religion, and the Spiritualisation of Heritage.” Religion 49, no. 1 (2019): 74–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/0048721X.2018.1515325.

Sánchez-Carretero, Cristina, ed. Heritage, Pilgrimage and the Camino to Finisterre: Walking to the End of the World. Springer, GeoJournal Library 117, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20212-9.

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Davie, Grace. ”Believing without Belonging: Is This the Future of Religion in Britain?” Social Compass 37, no. 4 (1990): 455-469. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/003776890037004004.

Edensor, Tim. National Identity, Popular Culture and Everyday Life. Oxford, New York: Berg Publishers, 2002.

Erdős, Kamill. “Cigány törvényszék. Romani-Kris.” Néprajzi Közlemények 4, no.

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Györke, Zoltán. "Csatka igazi arca." Dolgozók Lapja (April 08, 1972): 4.

Havasházi, László. "Ki esketett?" Dolgozók Lapja (September 16, 1961): 5.

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Ivakhiv, Adrian. “Nature and Self in New Age Pilgrimage.” Culture and Religion 4, no. 1 (2003): 93–118. https://doi.org/10.1080/01438300302812.

Kamarás, István. Kis Magyar religiográfia. Pécs: Pro Pannonia, 2003.

Margry, Peter Jan, ed. Shrines and Pilgrimage in the Modern World: New Itineraries

into the Sacred. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2008. https://doi. org/10.5117/9789089640116.

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Mogyorósi, Ágnes. “A csatkai cigánybúcsú.” Erdélyi Múzeum 76, no. 1 (2014): 56-68.

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in Europe.” Annals of Tourism Research 19, (1992): 68–78. https://doi. org/10.1016/0160-7383(92)90107-Z.

Olsen, Daniel H. and Dallen J. Timothy. “Tourism and Religious Journeys.” In Tourism, Religion and Spiritual Journeys, edited by Daniel H. Olsen and Dallen J. Timothy, 1-21. New York: Routledge, 2006.

Pereszlényi, Márta. “Adatok a csatkai búcsúhoz,” Ethnographia 50, no. 1 (1941): 284-285.

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Szuhay, Péter. A magyarországi cigányság kultúrája: etnikus kultúra vagy a szegénység kultúrája? Budapest: Panoráma, 1999.

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Takáts, Márton. A csatkai szent kut és kápolna eredete, s az ott történt csodák és látványosságok hű leirása. Győr: Sauervein Géza, n.d. [1862].

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Vajkai, Aurél. “A csatkai búcsú. Adatok a népi orvosláshoz.” Ethnographia 51, no.

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Vukonić, Boris. Tourism and Religion. Oxford, New York, Tokyo: Pergamon, 1996.

Wettich, Thorsten. “‘Luther was here’: The Making of Lutherweg as a Spiritual and Commemorative Pilgrimage.” Journal of the Irish Society for the Academic Study of Religions (in preparation, 2020).

Wér, Vilmos. “A csatkai búcsún.” Dolgozók Lapja (September 16, 1979): 7.

Wiley, Eric. “Romani Performance and Heritage Tourism: The Pilgrimage of the

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KSENIA TROFIMOVA

Minor Letnica: (Re)Locating the Tradition of Shared Worship in North Macedonia

Ksenia Trofimova is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences. Her main research areas include “lived” religion, religious imaginaries and pilgrimage; ethnic and cultural identity and memory in the light of religious practice and the development of religious communities. Her research publications have addressed religious traditions among Roma Muslim communities in the Balkans, specifically focusing on local Sufi traditions and “shared” pilgrimage sites in Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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E

very year on August 14, a small courtyard of the Catholic chapel of St. Joseph in Skopje comes alive on the eve of a major feast day, the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. The wooden building of the chapel, or “the bar-

rack” as it is commonly called among the locals, is situated at the periphery of the

historical center of the Macedonian capital. It is separated from Skopje’s “heart”— the trade and craft quarter, and the largest city bazaar—by a wide avenue. Hidden behind an unsightly metal fence, the chapel of St. Joseph is visually lost against the

background of the surrounding Ottoman mosques and Orthodox cathedrals that form the architectural landscape of this part of the city. Consequently, the chapel remains virtually invisible to thousands of citizens passing by during the day. Some parishioners gather in the chapel during Sunday morning services and for Sunday school classes that are held here along with occasional meetings.

Beginning in the early morning on August 14, the first pilgrims arrive at the en-

trance of the chapel. They come from Skopje and other places of North Macedonia as well as neighboring Serbia. The church feast and the pilgrimage associated with

this day bring together pilgrims from various European countries. All of them left

Skopje at some point in their lives in search of new opportunities and a better life.

Each summer, they come back reuniting with their families for a while and per-

forming annual vow rituals in front of the Virgin Mary statue. Thus, despite the

wide geography of pilgrimage routes, the chapel of St. Joseph remains specifically

a local object of veneration on the religious map of the Balkans. At the same time, during the celebration of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary this modest chapel

attracts followers of different religious traditions. The vast majority of them nowadays are Muslims, mainly being representatives of Roma communities.

The chapel of St. Joseph has been historically and functionally connected with

another major regional center of “joint” pilgrimage, the church of the Assumption

of the Virgin Mary located in the village of Letnica in Kosovo. For a long time, these sites of worship were administered by the same diocese and at certain points in time played a significant role in its development and politics. Moreover, they

have been symbolically connected through the annual pilgrimage when the chapel

of St. Joseph acts as an affiliated shrine. It becomes an improvised branch of the VOLUME 4 ISSUE 2 | SUMMER 2020

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Letnica church. That is why even nowadays, when these sites of worship are divided by geographic and institutional boundaries, the symbolic tie between them remains

relevant. It is constantly reproduced during the pilgrimage when the chapel of St. Joseph turns into a “small Letnica” for a short period of time.

Local pilgrimage to the St. Joseph’s chapel is but one of multiple examples of sharing of holy sites by followers of different religious affiliations—a vernacular practice that has been historically widespread throughout the multi-confessional Bal-

kan region and beyond.1 Drawing upon regular fieldwork carried out between 2014

and 2019 in North Macedonia and Serbia among the Roma Muslim communities, this paper aims at reconstructing and generally depicting the making of the chapel of St. Joseph a site of joint worship.

Studies focused on the so-called “joint” worship and sharing of sacred spaces have

created a special niche in the research on pilgrimage over the past few decades. In

general, the historiography of the subject includes a group of studies intending to document those forms in which sites of worship are shared by various religious

(and ethnic) communities, as well as outlining the set of socio-political and cultur-

al mechanisms that underlie the emergence of traditions of joint veneration and regulate their further elaboration and transmission.2 The recent wave of studies has 1

2

For a survey and comparative data see, for example, Frederick William Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans, vol. 2 (Oxford: Clanderon Press, 1929); Dionigi Albera, “Combining Practices and Beliefs: Muslim Pilgrims at Marian Shrines,” in Sharing the Sacra: The Politics and Pragmatics of Intercommunal Relations around Holy Places, ed. Glenn Bowman (London: Berghann Books, 2012, 10-24); Dionigi Albera, “Crossing the Frontiers Between the Monotheistic Religions, an Anthropological Approach,” in Sharing Sacred Spaces in the Mediterranean: Christians, Muslims, and Jews at Shrines and Sanctuaries, ed. Dionigi Albera and Maria Couroucli (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012), 219-244.

Robert M. Hayden, “Antagonistic Tolerance: Competitive Sharing of Religious Sites in South Asia and the Balkans,” Current Anthropology 43, no. 2 (2002): 205-231, https://doi. org/10.1086/338303; Elazar Barkan and Karen Barkey, “Introduction,” in Choreographies of Shared Sacred Sites: Religion, Politics and Conflict Resolution, ed. Elazar Barkan and Karen Barkey (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), 1-31; Ger Duijzings, Religion and the Politics of the Identity in Kosovo (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000); Anna Bigelow, “Everybody’s Baba: Making Space for the Other,” in Sharing the Sacra, ed. Glenn Bowman (London: Berghann Books, 2012), 25-43; Marijana Belaj and Zvonko Martić, “Pilgrimage Site Beyond Politics: Experience of the Sacred and Inter-Religious Dialog in Bosnia,” in Pilgrimage, Politics and Place-Making in Eastern Europe: Crossing the Borders, ed. Mario Katić and John Eade (London: Routledge, 2014), 15-36, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315600505..

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paid special attention to contextual negotiations and processes of contestation over the sacred places. The importance of exploring the act of sharing through detailed

observations of both inter-communal and intra-communal activities held on the grounds by divergent social actors is addressed in works by Glenn Bowman, Dioni-

gi Albera, David Henig, and others.3 Such an approach reminds us that the practice of sharing a sacred space is inevitably a “localized” one: it takes both spontaneous

and organized forms depending on a certain socio-political context; it is constructed in personal interactions of individual actors who are simultaneously influenced

by shifts in power relations on a broad scale and by respective institutional policies and cultural legacies. The same research optics reveals the complexity of the process

of setting the identity boundaries (across different scales, without reducing specifi-

cally to religious and ethnic ones) of both, individual pilgrims and communities in the framework of combined worship and devotional “overlappings.” Various studies

of the issue of the outlining, adjusting, and manifestation of identity in sacred spaces emphasize the contextuality and ambiguity of this process in every single case under study. Context matters, and in order to construct generalizations, or trace

and predict causations, one requires a meticulously and nuanced study of the bases

of individual motivations and rationale of believers and other social actors, fol-

lowing discourses and policies of various institutions which impact the situational choice in the context of sharing.

Following this analytical insight, I consider the symbolic space of the pilgrimage as

a space of expression (in a broad sense) that brings together diverse imageries and practices simultaneously reflecting and shaping a variety of discourses. In this re-

spect, the place of visitation—and, accordingly, of presence—being the space where both personal and collective experiences unfold, essentially becomes a subject of the narrative which contributes to its multi-dimensional image; and the polyphony of 3

Glenn Bowman, “Orthodox-Muslim Interactions at 'Mixed Shrines' in Macedonia,” in Eastern Christians in Anthropological Perspective, ed. Chris Hann and Herman Goltz (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), 195-219; Dionigi Albera, “‘Why Are You Mixing What Cannot Be Mixed?’ Shared Devotions in the Monotheisms,” History and Anthropology 19, no. 1 (2008): 37-59, http://dx.doi. org/10.1080/02757200802150026; David Henig, “Contested Choreographies of Sacred Spaces in Muslim Bosnia,” in Choreographies of Shared Sacred Sites: Religion, Politics and Conflict Resolution, ed. Elazar Barkan and Karen Barkey (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), 130-162.

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voices of the participants and spectators of the pilgrimage creates broad narratives framing the tradition of worshiping the site in each individual case specifically.4

This paper addresses one of the issues implied by research on shared sacred sites, namely, the historical and devotional continuity of the poly-confessional pilgrimage and its inscription into changing social realities. The symbolic tie maintained

between St. Joseph’s chapel and the Letnica church (not evident at first glance) becomes a focal point in my examination of the ways the tradition of sharing a

sacred space is shaped, (re)located, and transmitted in various given social contexts.

In what follows I examine situations and modes in which this symbolic tie is artic-

ulated by divergent social actors through narratives and practices of different kinds.

Both historical and ethnographic accounts allow me to take a snapshot of current

tendencies in the management of the St. Joseph’s chapel as a site of “joint” worship.

Exploring the tradition of sharing sacred space implies tracing both the trajectories

of continuity and change in sacred choreography, that is the choreographic shifts5 that interfere with the established scenarios of the “joint” pilgrimage.

LOCAL PILGRIMAGE: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC SKETCH Although some individual visitors gather in front of the chapel in the early morning hours of August 14, the main influx is observed closer to noon and is not

specifically tied to the schedule of church Masses. Starting from this moment, the

relatively fragmented ritual actions of isolated visitors begin to take on a certain order and create a recognizable pattern that symbolically distinguishes different groups of visitors from each other.

In general, the ritual complex performed by all pilgrims during the feast includes

several stages. Each respective stage includes particular scenarios of ritual actions, and variation between them implies belonging and adherence to different religious

and cultural traditions. In contrast to the liturgical part, which divides pilgrims from one another, some vernacular practices are performed jointly by Catholics 4 5

Setha M. Low and Denise Lawrence-Zúñiga, “Locating Culture,” in The Anthropology of Space and Place: Locating Culture, ed. Setha M. Low and Denise Lawrence-Zúñiga (Blackwell, 2003),16-18.

Indeed, such changes, as David Henig points out, “generate power shifts, discontents, or resistance in sacred sites.” Henig, “Contested Choreographies,” 135.

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and visitors who define themselves as Muslims. In this process the number of rites

draws a symbolic line between the pilgrims. However, the symbolic boundary does not strictly separate the attendees according to their confession. The boundary is fluid, and instances of overlapping are often evident.

Moreover, each stage of the pilgrimage—within a broad scenario that is shared by all participants—unfolds in its respective specific locus. These geographic points are set by organizers of the pilgrimage or follow certain ritual traditions, and they create a temporary sacred map in the territory of the chapel.

The main element of the ritual complex takes place directly inside the chapel. Pilgrims symbolically cross the border of the sacred space. Those who enter it—main-

ly Muslims—touch the doors that lead to the chapel with their palm, forehead, and lips; Catholic parishioners, as well as some Muslims, make a sign of the cross.

Once inside the chapel, the pilgrims head for the key goal of their worship—the statue of the Virgin Mary and Child—and the path to it is created along the wall

where images of the Passion of Jesus Christ are placed at some distance from each

other. The entire series of 14 images, sequentially placed around the perimeter of the chapel (not in the altar), forms a separate route for performing the Way of the

Cross (Via Crucis). Each respective image refers to a certain stage in this practice that corresponds to particular topics for recalling the events of the Passion, reflection, and prayer.

The images of the Passion of Jesus Christ are involved in practices shared by nearly all pilgrims, regardless of their religious self-identification. However, different

styles of engagement with the images define the divergent patterns of devotional actions for each case. For those belonging to Catholic tradition, these images symbolically mark special loci—the “stations”—where devotees linger while immersing themselves in thoughts and prayers. For those who follow different religious

traditions, the images are like other objects imbued with special powers, according

to their beliefs. While moving toward the statue of the Virgin Mary and Child

in the continuous flow, many of them try to touch the images or to bring their

children closer to the pictures. Children are raised as high as possible by adults so that they can kiss or touch the image with their hand or forehead. In fact, such VOLUME 4 ISSUE 2 | SUMMER 2020

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vernacular actions are traditionally shared also by Catholic parishioners. The differences between devotional

practices at this stage are visually manifested in the dis-

continuity between dynamic movement and static rest during the performance, as well as in the recited formulas and prayers.

Approaching the statue of the Virgin Mary is the cul-

mination of the rite performed in the chapel. It is at this stage that different ritual scenarios intersect and intertwine. Devotees constantly cover the statue with head

scarves, towels, and articles of clothing that the shrine’s helpers—clerics and parishioners—later carefully put

aside in the basket reserved for votive offerings. In some Statue of the Virgin Mary and Child from the St. Joseph’s chapel.

Photo by Ksenia Trofimova, 2019.

cases, pieces of clothing brought to the chapel do not act

as ex-votos, but remain with the pilgrims after touching the statue, transferring a particle of grace to their homes; they use these objects in various healing and pro-

tective practices. Visitors take turns approaching the statue of the Virgin Mary and Child, touching the feet and hands of the sculptures and bringing children to kiss

them. They thank “Mother” (Majka) and God for performed miracles or ask for help in brief personal prayers that are most often pronounced silently or in a whis-

per. The pilgrims touch the statue with wallets and banknotes or even with personal documents or mobile phones as well as with candles. Then they leave these objects

as gifts to the church, or light candles on pedestals in the courtyard of the chapel.

Some other offerings, brought here as part of vows, are left on a specially set high

table. Typical gifts are oil, candles, towels, clothes (socks or T-shirts) and money.

In the stream of pilgrims who attend this chapel annually throughout their lives

or for a certain period of time, and who routinely perform a single set of actions, individual believers stand out. They remain near the statue, addressing the Mother or God with a long prayer and sharing their personal story. In doing so the pilgrims

can take or renew vows (zavet) as a way of opening or continuing a personal or fa-

milial tradition of worshiping at this place. Many pilgrims spend some more time in the chapel, greeting neighbors and friends, immersing themselves in prayers, or JOURNAL OF GLOBAL CATHOLICISM

Ksenia Trofimova | 75

consulting with clergy and other volunteers.

Both Catholic and Muslim visitors complete their circuit inside the chapel, passing

by the statues of St. Joseph and St. Anthony of Padua and symbolically “tracking” the way to the doors along the opposite wall. They proceed from one image of the

Passion of Jesus Christ to another. Some of the images (as for example the one that corresponds to the 11th Station—“Jesus is nailed to the cross”) along with the statues are also involved in the ritual, although to a lesser extent: pilgrims leave

some offerings here, touch and pray in front of them. During my last visit in 2019 I noticed that the statue of Jesus Christ was moved by the clergy from the altar

part of the chapel to its main part so that pilgrims could venerate it as well. Others, mainly Muslim visitors, leave the chapel through the central passage that starts in

the altar area and do not dare to turn their backs on the statue of the Virgin Mary.

They cross the threshold of the shrine and complete this stage of the ceremony and the ritual cycle by touching and kissing the doors of the chapel.

Patterns of the ritual that various pilgrims perform here are occasionally shaped by liturgic practice. For two days, the Rosary prayer is recited several times by the clergy and a few Catholic parishioners who attend the pilgrimage or help in organiza-

tion. On the Assumption day a morning festive Mass is held in the chapel. I have learned that the reading of the Rosary prayer is usually initiated by parishioners

or priests and is not specifically planned during the day. Therefore, in one year the

soundscape of the chapel was repeatedly filled up with voices reciting the Rosary.

Another year, I recorded just a familiar acoustic background: steps, whispering, children’s play, broken at times by individual emotional exclamations both in native languages (Romani, Macedonian and Croatian) and Arabic.

Regarding the “joint” nature of pilgrimage to the chapel of St. Joseph, the partici-

pation of Muslim visitors in church rituals is limited to presence and observation.

Recitations of the Rosary do not interrupt the performance of vernacular practices, but visually slows down its pace and shapes partly chaotic actions that occur in the crowd. Unwilling to interfere with the practices of Catholic devotees, Muslims

coming here try to calm down their children and thus make the whole ritual more organized.

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As mentioned above, the following stages of the ritual complex are associated with certain locations around the chapel. The sequence of the steps may vary, while the

practices that form the ritual scenario involve lighting candles, going around the chapel and visiting springs with blessed and healing water. The space and the ritual

performance at these sites are also organized and regulated to some extent by representatives of the parish and individual helpers, who tend to be regular visitors to the chapel from Roma Muslim communities.

Pedestals for lighting candles are located along the fence in the courtyard of the

chapel. When the clergy expects a large influx of pilgrims, pedestals fill the entire area of the courtyard in front of the entrance to the chapel. Candles can be bought at several sales points that appear in front of the entrance gates and along the busy

main street. Lighting of candles itself can precede or complete a visit to the chapel

and the veneration of the statue of the Virgin Mary and Child. It is accompanied by a personal prayer and the utterance of religious formulas such as the basmala formula (In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful).

Almost all pilgrims perform ritual ablutions using water from a spring—in fact, an urban street water source located behind the chapel. Ritual ablutions are quite common in local pilgrimage practice, and springs (natural or artificial) are believed

to have healing powers. Visitors line up for water and fill plastic bottles with it. One

can bring bottles from home or buy them from parish helpers or numerous traders.

They also wash their faces and hands, as well as putting water on the wounds of

their bodies. Children’s faces are washed with particular care. I noticed that some

pilgrims perform certain parts of the ritual ablution complex that precedes the salah (namaz) prayer. At the same time, holy water is offered to everybody. It is

poured by the clergy or helpers from special containers that are separated from the pilgrims by a small fence. This measure is reasonable since the amount of water

is limited while the demand is quite high. Some pilgrims return frequently to fill

more and more bottles with holy water. I have learned that holy water could be used during the entire year in healing practices. My interviewees mentioned that holy water is meant to be used by each member of their large families and especially by those who are sick. Some of the visitors make this pilgrimage not only JOURNAL OF GLOBAL CATHOLICISM

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for their personal vow, but also with the purpose of making a vow for their weak Waiting for pilgrims. relatives or neighbors.

Here one may also get a tiny flap of fabric: these are put inside wallets and renewed every year on the Feast Day of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. According to some of the ritual assistants, this fabric is consecrated by priests and then cut up into small pieces. Other helpers assured me, as did most of the devotees, that this fabric was brought from Kosovo, namely from the church of Letnica village, one of

the well-known pilgrimage centers in the region. It is believed that the fabric had been part of the robe that covered the venerated statue of the Virgin Mary.

The water source designed for ablutions is located within the external circuit that

is followed mainly by Muslim visitors, usually in a clockwise direction. As I have learned, the visitors determine the direction of the circuit independently, following

either tradition or their own intuition. The content of actions within this circuit is sometimes discussed with the clergy, the initiatives suggested by the parish being the only exception. Parish initiatives are focused on the practice of sacrificing ani-

mals and their presence on chapel’s territory. According to the ritual scenario, one should process the animal around the chapel three times.

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As a rule, the clergy are present on the territory of the chapel throughout the two days when it is open for pilgrims. It is worth pointing that some of the lay assistants, who are engaged by the clergy and regularly

help in organizing the pilgrimage, come from Roma

Muslim community. The priests and helpers are involved in all initiatives: services and collective recitations of prayers, sharing flaps of the fabric and holy

water, as well as in communication with visitors. The clergy give personal permission or restrict the perfor-

mance of a certain devotional action if it seems to him ambiguous or contradicts the official position of the

parish or personal attitude of a priest. It is important to note that some of the helpers, since they are memTiny flaps of fabric.

Photo by Ksenia Trofimova, 2019.

bers of the parishes belonging to this or neighboring

dioceses, also take an active part in direct communication with the pilgrims. One

parishioner from Croatia told me that she has been coming to Skopje for several years and helping the parish organize various celebrations and pilgrimages. During an interview, she reported believes that guiding and supporting pilgrims constitute her personal devotional mission.

ST. JOSEPH’S CHAPEL ON THE SACRED MAP OF SKOPJE St. Joseph’s chapel appears on the sacred map of Skopje along with the foundation

of the diocesan orphanage of the same name. The orphanage occupied the house

that had previously belonged to a local Muslim religious leader, and the chapel in turn was built nearby to serve various religious purposes. Both the orphanage

and the chapel were founded and sanctified in 1935 by the bishop of Skopje, Dr. Ivan Franjo Gnidovec.6 At that time, the orphanage hosted and educated nearly two dozen children. Some came from poor families while others lost parents in 6

Ivan Franjo Gnidovec / Janez Frančišek Gnidovec (1873-1939), http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/ bishop/bgnid.html.

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war.7 The next bishop of Skopje, Smiljan Franjo Čekada, followed in Gnidovec’s

footsteps with a focus on social ministry that later formed his image and local “hagiography.”8

St. Joseph’s orphanage was closed in 1947, but its buildings were assigned to the

diocese and continued to meet the administrative needs of the parish. According

to an oral account made by one of the oldest priests of the parish, the chapel was

engaged as a religious space in the post-war period, along with the city cathedral, the Sacred Heart of Jesus.9 The chapel acquired a new status after the devastating

earthquake of 1963, which destroyed the city and its cathedral, and also damaged the bishop’s residence. Since the cathedral was seriously damaged, local authorities

refused to restore it and to keep it under the diocese of Skopje. They suggested as

an alternative erecting a new cathedral on a different site outside of the city’s old center.10 As my interlocutors put it, over the next 20 years while the construction

of the cathedral took place, the chapel of St. Joseph served as a central place of worship. The chapel united the parish throughout the year and hosted believers

from neighboring Catholic parishes. Followers of different religious traditions also visited the site during church celebrations such as the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, worshiping the statue of the Virgin Mary—which according to their beliefs

is endowed with miraculous powers (namely, healing properties). As some of the priests and assistants suggest, the statues that are venerated now in St. Joseph chap-

el are likely to have previously decorated both the chapel and the cathedral. Those which survived the earthquake were brought together in the renovated chapel after the disaster.11

According to recollections shared by the clergy and pilgrims, it can be assumed .7 “Sirotište Sv. Josipa,” Blagovijest XIV, no. 1-2 (1941): 53-55.

8 Smiljan Franjo Čekada (1902-1976), http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/bcekada.html; Alojz Turk, Letnica. Marijansko Hodočasničko Svetište – Ekumenski Centar na Kosovu. Majka Božja Crnagorska. Letnička Gospa – Zoja Cërnagore (Beograd: Blagovest, 1973), 76 9 Mac.: Катедрала Пресвето Срце Исусово / Serb.-Croat.: Katedrala Presvetog Srca Isusova; Personal interviews with a Catholic priest from the Diocese of Skopje conducted in Skopje in 2018.

10 Turk, Letnica, 68; Opći Šematizam Katoličke Crkve u Jugoslaviji. Cerkev v Jugoslaviji 1974, ed.

Krunoslav Draganović (Zagreb: Biskupska Konferencija Jugoslavije, 1975), 414.

11 Personal interviews with a Catholic priest from the Diocese of Skopje conducted in Skopje in 2014 and 2018.

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that the transformation of St. Joseph’s chapel into a new site of poly-confessional (“joint”) pilgrimage took place during the second part of the 20th century. In the

same period the region experienced a growth in pilgrimage centers, which were

already popular and open to visitors who represented different religious communities. This was also true for the above-mentioned church of the Assumption of the

Virgin Mary located in Letnica village. Every year, tens of thousands of pilgrims— Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Muslims—moved through this church. According to available observations, Roma made up a significant number among the Muslim visitors.12

LETNICA AS A SITE OF WORSHIP The village of Letnica is one of a few Catholic settlements founded in the north

part of the historical and geographical area of Skopska Crna Gora (Montenegro of

Skopje) and integrated in a separate parish.13 It is mentioned in Church documents

as early as the 16th century.14 As the center of a parish that was under the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Skopje (or Skopje-Prizren) for a long time, the Letnica vil-

lage gradually acquired a special position among the religious bodies that helped to build and maintain the religious life of local Catholic communities in the region.15

There, the parish church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary was built and occasionally renovated. And it is there that a venerated statue of the Virgin Mary, made

of dark wood, has been kept for several centuries, attracting numerous devotees

from surrounding areas.16 The statue, commonly referred to as Letnica, is renowned for its healing properties. Its image is widely represented in local folklore, as well as

in individual narratives corresponding to lay believers’ personal experiences, usually narrated in the discourse of a miracle (for example, visions and healings).

12 Anto Baković, “Zoja Crna Gora,” Glas Koncila 18 (1968): 8; Ante Katalinić, “Ekumensko značenje štovanja Marije u Hrvata,” Obnovljeni život: časopis za filozofiju i religijske znanosti 35, no. 5-6 (1980): 476; Atanasije Urošević, “Katolička župa Crna Gora u Južnoj Srbiji (Letnička župa),” Glasnik Skopskog Naučnog Društva. XIII, no. 7 (1934): 161.

13 At the moment Letnica belongs to Kosovo, and is located in the south-east part of the republic, close to the border with Macedonia.

14 Urošević, “Katolička župa,” 11.

15 Currenty Letnica is run by the Diocese Prizren-Prishtina.

16 Vernacular religious vocabulary contains several names associated with Letnica: Majka, Majka Letnica, Letnička Gospa, Majka Božja Letnička.

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It is widely believed that this statue of the Virgin Mary appeared in the village miraculously: she “moved,” “flew over” or even escaped from Skopje, and was found by the locals on the hill that overlooks the Letnica river valley.17 The miraculous

relocation of the statue was interpreted by lay believers as a form of expression, a message in which the Virgin Mary manifests her presence and specifies the place

of the epiphany as a locus of veneration.18 Such an understanding, strengthened by the evidence of numerous miraculous events that are associated with the statue of the Virgin Mary of Montenegro, fuels the tradition of pilgrimage to Letnica.19

We can learn about Letnica as a pilgrimage center, and in particular as a focus

of “joint” veneration, from sources that date back to the second half of the 19th

and early 20th century. Archbishop Buccarelli of Skopje and the Jesuit missionary Genovizzi refer to the traditional nature of worship of the Virgin Mary statue and the church, where it was placed many years after being made “homeless.” They also

confirm that together with Catholics, “Muslims and Orthodox Christians, as well

as Muslim and Orthodox gypsies [Roma], are protected by the Virgin Mary.”20

Both historical references also include a brief testimony of the favors received by non-Catholic devotees from the Blessed Virgin Mary.21

According to the data available, the diocese launched its Letnica “project” in the 19th century by starting construction on a parish church in the village, coronation

of the statue of the Lady of Letnica and initiating the annual pilgrimage there.

Ger Duijzings reasonably suggests that the pilgrimage to Letnica was an “orga-

nized religious event,” which was “meant to recover some of the church’s influence after a long period of Ottoman domination.”22 Church historians and parishioners 17 Marija Ilić, “Kultna mesta Kosova i Metohije,” Baština 15 (2003): 162. Urošević, “Katolička župa,” 2.

Frok Zefi, Župa Letnica (Zajednica Kosovskih Hrvata “Letnica”), 50, 171, http://www.hkm.lu/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Zupa-Letnica.pdf; Krunoslav Draganović, Opći Šematizam Katoličke crkve u Jugoslaviji (Sarajevo: Regina Apostolorum, 1939), 370.

18 Ilić, “Kultna mesta”, 162.

19 Zefi, Župa Letnica, 171.

20 Zefi, Župa Letnica, 38, 50, 170.

21 Zefi, Župa Letnica, 175.

22 Duijzings, Religion, 88-89. Dujizings reasonably links the growing pilgrimage to Letnica on the Assumption day—a part of local ecclesiastic policies, with the wider process—“the officially endorsed popular resurgence of Marian devotion” in the Catholic world.

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generally represent the efforts undertaken by the diocese to give an impetus to the

renewal of religious life in small parishes scattered across the region as personal

initiatives of certain spiritual leaders.23 As Genovizzi recalls, it was the archbishop Carev who initiated the annual organized pilgrimage to Letnica, and each time

he participated himself by organizing pilgrimages of priests and lay believers from other parishes. This established path was followed by Bishop Gnidovec who during

his service renovated the church in Letnica, the main object of pilgrimage in the

diocese, and put much of his energy into creating the minimum necessary religious infrastructure in his parishes including educational establishments, media and so-

cial service institutions. The bishop’s focus on social ministry activities, most often

addressed in memoirs in terms of holiness, significantly contributes to the current

image of Letnica. Due to his efforts, a charitable house of providing medical care for those in need regardless to their social status, ethnic and religious belonging

was set up in the village.24 Regarding the issue of Crypto-Catholicism (i.e. the

laramans), conversion and other challenges the religious community had faced during dramatic social transformations of the 19th-20th centuries, Letnica, a re-

mote Catholic enclave, which like other Catholic settlements in the region is “one in a sea of non-believers,”25 was introduced in ecclesiastical media as a role model for the diocesan Catholic community that at that time was made up of “dormant

and half-dead Catholic consciences.”26 In the missionary imaginary, Letnica is a symbol of safety, commitment, and reunion for local Catholics, whose “positions in

Macedonia have never been particularly strong, even though the Vatican has been expressing its interest and taking measures to strengthen them since the middle of the past century.”27

The special status the parish gained due to Marian devotions is stressed by Ata-

nasij Urošević in his ethnographic study. He points out that during the celebration 23 Zefi, Župa Letnica, 172-173.

24 Turk, Letnica, 76; Zefi, Župa Letnica,154.

25 Smiljan Franjo Čekada, “Smiljan Franjo. Okružnica” Blagovijest XIV, no. 3 (1941): 42.

26 "Bogatstvo srca I ljubavi (Uz Blagdan sv. Obitelji),” Blagovijest XIV, no. 1-2 (1941): 23.

27 Turk, Letnica, 18; Zefi, Župa Letnica, 171. Rimokatolička crkva u NR Makedoniji, 1955, 31, 12, 144 Savezna komisija za verska pitanja [Federal Comission for Religious Affairs], The State Archives of the SFRY, 1 JOURNAL OF GLOBAL CATHOLICISM

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of the Ascension of the Virgin Mary, the sanctuary is surrounded not only by

Catholic but also Eastern Orthodox devotees as well as “Muslims, most of whom

are gypsies [Roma].”28 The importance of this parish for maintaining the Catholic

presence in the area can be affirmed by the fact that the First Eucharistic Congress of the Diocese was held in the newly consecrated church during the celebration of the Assumption (Ascension) of the Virgin Mary in 1931.29

According to memories shared by the clergy and pilgrims, neither the First nor

the Second World Wars broke the tradition of worshiping Letnica. However, these wars adjusted geographical and socio-political boundaries and realities in

the region, undoubtedly offering new contexts to which the pilgrimage tradition adapted. During the Second World War, with new borders being drawn in the

occupied territory, some of the pilgrims were no longer able to make regular visits

to the Letnica church.30 Because the devotees were cut off from their sanctuary, they started to reproduce the traditional pilgrimage, keeping their vow by traveling

to the Catholic church in the nearest parish of Uroševac.31 This case traces one of

the models enabling continuity of pilgrimage practice, namely “delegation” of the functions of a “central” holy site to “peripheral” sites of worship.

As a result of the new state borders established after the war, Letnica received

pilgrims from different parts of Socialist Yugoslavia, turning into a region-wide devotional center.32 In particular, Dr. Smiljan Čekada continued his predecessor’s

(Dr. Gnidovec’s) policy in supporting vulnerable groups who faced poverty and

discrimination.33 His strategy and activities on the grounds, as I would assume, marked the transformation of Letnica into a regional center of the organized 28 Urošević, “Katolička župa,” 11.

29 Urošević, “Katolička župa,” 11.

30 On the territorial division of Kosovo lands during the WWII, see Noel Malcolm, Kosovo: A Short History (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 289-313. Alojz Turk depicts the case of Muslim Roma who found themselves within the borders of the Great Bulgaria.

31 Turk, Letnica, 71-72; Mijo Gabrić, “Izvor života i pojas plodnosti,” Glas Koncila 17 (1974): 8.

32 "The whole Yugoslavia had been coming here,” Biljana Sikimić, “Sveta putovanja: Letnica na Kosovu,” Glasnik Etnografskog Instituta SANU LXII, no. 1 (2014): 25, https://doi.org/10.2298/ GEI1401015S. 33 This strategy in social ministries is still relevant. The Caritas regional office in Skopje works on providing preschool education for needy families coming from the Roma communities.

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multi-confessional pilgrimage. Bishop Čekada, according to diocesan priests of his

time, took a number of important steps to construct a model of the local tradition

of “joint” pilgrimage to Letnica. As Alojz Turk puts it, with the end of WWII, Bishop Čekada responded to requests from Roma devotees and “gave them per-

mission” to perform “their own” rituals in the church when there are fewer pilgrims (probably Catholics) inside.34 And although it remains unclear from this text in which way the ritual actions made by the Roma visitors were special and what kind of limitations they faced in practice, the bishop’s permission might have set and

legitimated the following broad scenario of the “joint” pilgrimage to Letnica.35 The

Diocese responded to religious heterogeneity by organizing pilgrimage activities and introducing followers of different traditions to the general pattern of performing festive rituals. It is critical to note that this pattern entailed direct communication between lay believers of various religious or confessional traditions and the

Catholic clergy about ritual matters. For example, as part of the festive schedule, special services—including communion—were organized for Orthodox pilgrims.36 Muslims, in turn, could participate in meetings with the bishop as well as attend

sermons that were held in the Romani language, even though the traditional lan-

guages of the sermon (Croatian and Albanian) were known to Muslim pilgrims and were used in daily communication.37

Military conflicts escalated in the region throughout the 1990s. Accompanied by various identity building processes, these events significantly shaped pilgrimage routes and led to a rewriting of established scenarios of ritual performance.38

Nevertheless, the pilgrimage to Letnica persisted despite the dramatic events that occurred at the turn of the 21st century, which included various border shifts

and on-going latent confrontations between social actors. At the same time, 34 Turk, Letnica, 72.

35 Turk, Letnica, 72; Zefi, Župa Letnica,178; Gabrić, “Izvor života,” 8.

36 Gabrić, “Izvor života,” 9; Baković, “Zoja Crna Gora,” 8.

37 Baković, “Zoja Crna Gora,” 9; Gabrić, “Letnica,” 11; Zefi, Župa Letnica, 174; 38 Duijzings, Religion, 87. Ger Dujizings depicts practices of exclusion regarding the pilgrimage to the Orthodox monastery of Gračanica and the end of “joint” veneration in other holy sites located in Kosovo. Duijzings, Religion, 66-78; Sanja Zlatanović, “Letnica: slika prevazilaženja granica i njeni ostaci,” Slike kulture i sad. Zbornik Etnografskog Instituta SANU 24 (2008): 179-191.

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although Letnica has remained at the heart of worship, the pilgrimage has been

reinterpreted and gained additional meanings in both narrative and practice, reflecting changes in the respective wider social and political context.39 Many of the internally displaced persons as well as old-timers living on the border area with Kosovo refuse to return to Letnica, even if the annual veneration of the Letnica

church and the statue of the Virgin Mary are part of a long-term vow; they fear spontaneous outbreaks of violence in the area. However, nowadays, some believers—accompanied by the clergy from the Skopje Diocese—attend the annual cel-

ebrations in Letnica, which currently belongs to the Prizren-Prishtina Diocese.

Until last year (2019) an annual one-day pilgrimage was organized by the parish

for any person wishing to attend, on the 15th of August; this has now been put on hold. My interlocutors admitted that organizing such a trip did not pay off, since many devotees preferred to travel independently with their families.

THE PRESENCE OF LETNICA IN THE ST. JOSEPH’S CHAPEL While one might assume that St. Joseph’s chapel would play a small role in local

religious life, since the main pilgrimage routes led to Letnica, in fact St. Joseph’s chapel, following the earthquake of 1963, became one of the central functioning

sites in the parish of Skopje. As my interlocutors recalled, “those who could not make the pilgrimage to Kosovo, attended on the same dates to the church of Skopje.”40 As a newly-built cathedral in Skopje opened its doors for believers, the chap-

el found itself in the shadow of the cathedral, while simultaneously developing as a pilgrimage site of local importance. The significance of the chapel as a pilgrimage center grew during the outbreaks of military hostilities and corresponding tensions between different ethnic communities on the grounds within the former Yugo-

slavia (1991-2001). During the post-conflict period, the chapel gained religious

importance when popular holy sites such as Letnica were symbolically relocated by

locals and refugees, that were subsequently cut off from their object of veneration, 39 Sikimić, “Sveta putovanja,” 22; Personal interviews with a Muslim woman conducted in Skopje in 2012; with a Muslim woman conducted in Niš (Serbia) in 2014.

40 Personal interviews with a Catholic priest from Skopje in 2014; with a Muslim spiritual leader from Niš (Serbia) in 2014; with a Muslim pilgrim from Niš in 2014.

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and continued receiving pilgrims in different spaces.41 St. Joseph’s chapel became one of the improvised branches of the Letnica church. The ritual repertoire of the

“joint” pilgrimage that had been typical for Letnica and other sites was reproduced here – albeit with some changes – while in other Catholic or Orthodox parishes the

established scenario was either rejected by church officials or significantly transformed, creating a barrier to Muslim visitors and marginalizing this tradition.42

Majka (Serb.: mother)—this is how the pilgrims and some outsiders refer to both

the statue of the Virgin Mary and the chapel of St. Joseph where it is located. This name also applies to the period of the annual devotional visitation. Pilgrims also

give the same title to the statue of the Virgin Mary and the church in Letnica.43

Such a designation associatively refers to Letnica, and marks a symbolic tie between these two sites of worship.44 Importantly, none of my interlocutors among the vis-

itors who defined themselves as Muslims could clearly and intelligibly explain the

meaning of the Assumption day as a religious feast. In their cosmology, this day is

the Lady’s day and simultaneously the day of a particular site (the Letnica church or the St. Joseph’s chapel). This interpretation is shaped by the idea of special powers, that are embedded in a certain place and reveal itself in a particular period, providing a “channel” for effective communication with the unseen. This symbolic tie

with Letnica and the continuity of the “joint” pilgrimage can be traced in different ways. The “sacral presence” of the Lady of Letnica is constituted in and through certain ritual actions initiated by clergy and pilgrims alike, as well as through the

transmission of various narratives that represent both the position of the church 41 Dragana Radisavljevic Ciparizovic, Hodočašća u XXI veku: studije slučaja tri svetilišta u Srbiji: Kalemegdanska Sv. Petka, Bogorodica Đuniska i Majka Božja Tekijska (Belgrade: Univerzitet u Beogradu, Filozofski fakultet, 2016), 155; Dragan Todorović, “Roma Cult Places: The Roman Catholic Church in Niš,” in Roma Religious Culture, ed. Dragoljub B. Đorđević (Niš: Punta, 2003), 131-140; Ksenia Trofimova, “Constructing Holy Spaces in a Multicultural Milieu: The Case of Zajde Bašće Shrine in Niš (Serbia),” State, Religion and Church 3, no. 2 (2016): 93-95.

42 Radisacljević-Čiparizović, Hodočašća u XXI veku, 156; Todorović, Roma Cult Places, 131-140.

43 Илић М., и др. Култна места Косова и Метохиjе // Баштина 15 (2003): 161. Personal interviews with a Muslim man conducted in Skopje in 2017; with a Muslim woman conducted in Skopje in 2017; with a Catholic woman, a volunteer in the diocese of Skopje, conducted in Skopje in 2017.

44 Katalinić, “Ekumensko značenje,” 476.

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and the personal experiences and attitudes of the organizers and devotees.45 It is in St. Joseph’s chapel where the pilgrims receive the tiny flaps of fabric that are

associated with the robe covering the Lady of Letnica. As I have learned, some

pilgrims refer to the statue of the Virgin Mary venerated in St. Joseph’s chapel as the sister of the respected statue of the Lady of Letnica.46 The presence of Letnica

is also manifested in the symbolic space of the chapel through frequent references, memories, and testimonies of divine interventions that pilgrims share among each other and with the clergy, as well as in their prayers.

Moreover, in some cases the symbolic tie in question is explicitly articulated, for instance when a volunteer from the parish joins the pilgrim in their personal prayer

(be the pilgrim Muslim or Catholic). The pilgrim’s barely audible prayer is pro-

nounced then jointly and aloud, standing out against the homogeneous acoustic background. In her desire to support an elderly woman praying to God (Allah) for

the protection of her son, one of the volunteers called upon the Lady of Letnica, “May the Virgin of Letnica grace him health!”47

At the same time, the annual pilgrimage to St. Joseph’s chapel is distinctive, since

it is nowadays predominantly Roma Muslims who participate. Whereas the main festive celebrations are held in the cathedral, the space of the chapel is designated

for, as some of the priests put it, “specific” traditions of worship, in which “particular perceptions” and “particular religiosities” are expressed.48

As Setha Low points out when focusing on the “phenomenological and symbolic experience of space,” space is socially constructed “through people’s social exchanges, memories, images and daily use of the material setting—into scenes and actions

45 Robert Orsi uses the concept of “sacral presence” to refer to “the literal presence of the holy in things and places” as related to the “imaginations and experiences of religious practitioners” and as being negotiated by various social actors. Robert Orsi, Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005), 10.

46 Personal interviews with a Catholic priest from the Diocese of Skopje conducted in Skopje in 2014 and 2018; with a cathedral dean of the Diocese of Skopje conducted in Skopje in 2017 and 2019; and with a woman, a Muslim visitor of the chapel, Skopje 2019.

47 Personal interview with a Catholic woman, a volunteer from the parish, conducted in Skopje in 2017.

48 Personal interviews with a Catholic priest from the Diocese of Skopje conducted in Skopje in 2014, and with a cathedral dean of the Diocese of Skopje conducted in Skopje in 2017 and 2019.

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“May the Virgin of Letnica grace him health!” Photo by Ksenia Trofimova, 2017.

that convey symbolic meaning.”49 Following this approach, the space of pilgrimage

may be represented as mediated by variable ritual actions, pragmatics, and interpretations, shared by both lay believers and the clergy. The image of the holy place that frames the pilgrimage is created and transmitted via open sources: mainly, via

oral accounts, journalistic reporting, notes from diocesan media, sermons or public comments made by religious authorities.

As I have mentioned above, the enduring symbolic tie between two sites of worship

works for me as a starting point to trace how the local tradition of “joint” pilgrimage is located, transmitted, and reproduced. Addressing the way this symbolic tie, embedded within ritual scenarios and shared narratives, plays out during the pilgrimage to St. Joseph’s chapel enables us to discuss what is specific about the on-going process of localization and transmission in a given social and cultural context.

For many visitors to St. Joseph’s chapel, the pilgrimage to Letnica represents a

personal experience that is inscribed in individual as well as in social (particularly familial) memory. The memory of the Letnica pilgrimage—through its essentially composite image—is integrated into, and fabricates the lived tradition of the

veneration of St. Joseph’s chapel. In other words, the image of Letnica and related narratives serve as both the background and a key parallel to current practices and

narratives associated with St. Joseph’s chapel and the annual “joint” pilgrimage.

49 Setha M. Low, “Towards an Anthropological Theory of Space and Place,” Semiotica 175, no. 1/4 (2009): 24, https://doi.org/10.1515/semi.2009.041.

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However, localizing tradition is undoubtedly a discursive process. Regarding the

making of St. Joseph’s chapel, official church narratives created around Letnica are supplemented and continuously refined by participants’ vernacular narratives.

(RE)LOCATING THE TRADITION OF THE JOINT PILGRIMAGE Letnica “Project” and the Official Church Narrative The broad repertoire of vernacular practices, observed in Letnica, unfold the narratives of the “lived” faith, cohesion and “lived ecumenism” of various religious com-

munities and traditions during the pilgrimage. The official narratives, produced

at the various stages of the Letnica “project” promoted messages shared by local

religious authorities, and pursued the trajectories of diocesan policies: a timely, but temporary and contextual language was created for this purpose on the pag-

es of ecclesiastical bulletins. Addressing the issue of the multi-faith pilgrimage, the reports published in the 1960s-1980s were primarily focused on the issue of “sharing” and its management by different social actors engaged during the pil-

grimage and therefore on the issue of identity boundaries and their articulations.

While highlighting the communitas that broke down social barriers to foster unity

in devotion to the Lady of Letnica, Catholic pieces also underlined those symbolic boundaries that were defined by ritual prescriptions/limitations or by the discursive

process of religious identity construction.50 The narrative about Letnica portraying 50 The official position of the church authorities regarding the involvement of the Orthodox pilgrims, who were denied the sacraments of confession and communion, clarified the issue of sharing: “It never occurs to anyone to use this for proselytism or propaganda. For the Orthodox believer, this does not serve as an excuse to betray his Church, but only for spiritual strengthening, to become stronger in faith as an Orthodox Christian.” Baković, “Zoja Crna Gora,” 8. The author’s clarification regarding the official attitude toward the Orthodox pilgrims and the policy in the field of propagation of faith and conversion is particularly meaningful, given that for a long period of time, there had been tension developing between the Diocese of Skopje and the Yugoslav authorities affecting the issue of religious and social activities among the Catholics of the Latin and Eastern rites. The authorities believed that the proactive and successful missionary work on the grounds at a time when the issue of the status of the Orthodox Church in Macedonia had not yet been resolved would not only allow local Catholic dioceses to strengthen ties with the Vatican, but would also give impetus to the development of the reactionary movement. Borče Ilievski, “The Attitude of the Authorities of the People’s Republic of Macedonia Toward the Roman Catholic Church in the 1950s,” Radovi – Zavod za hrvatsku povijest 46 (2014): 401-419, https://doi.org/10.17234/ RadoviZHP.46.12.

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it as simultaneously a space of frontiers and communitas, division and cohesion

corresponded to the relevant intra-confessional discussions raised at that time.

Those included the issue of “lived” faith, ecumenism, and communication to

non-believers—issues that were of special importance to Catholics in the wake of the Second Vatican Council.51

The concept of ecumenism was used in the local Catholic publications of that period (1960s-1980s) in a broader sense to describe this particular local context. The

official church narrative clarifies social and cultural significance of the pilgrimage to Letnica for the territory with a complex and often painful history of inter-com-

munal relations: “Ecumenism here is not a matter of debate, but a way of life.

The Lady of Letnica is here an ambassador of ecumenism, love and harmony. The Catholic church, though the most modest in number of followers, is carrying out a great social mission in these parts.”52

As both the reports from the 1950s–1970s and contemporary memoirs show, Letnica as a site of pilgrimage was shaped by a wide repertoire of rituals performed

by followers of various religious traditions with the permission and assistance of the clergy. The popular narrative of Letnica as a space of the “lived” faith has been elaborated thanks, in large part, to the corpus of stories about miraculous interventions that circulated among pilgrims and priests. The Other, specifically the Muslim Roma, and the Other’s experience played a crucial role in creating a respectful

public discourse. Because they were portrayed as true (sincere) believers standing

firm in their faith, the Other was portrayed as the main addressee and the guaran-

tor of the Lady’s grace, i.e. the image of the pivotal Other was instrumentialized: “Muslims more than others receive the Lady’s answers to their prayers, then go Orthodox believers, and lastly – our Catholics.”53

51 Ante Katalinić, a well-known theologian from Croatia, referred directly to the decrees of the Second Vatican Council when speaking about local daily relations of various religious and ethnic communities in terms of ecumenism. Katalinić, “Ekumensko značenje,” 469-471.

52 Katalinić, “Ekumensko značenje,” 53 Katalinić, “Ekumensko značenje,” 477; Baković, “Zoja Crna Gora,” 8-9.

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Contested practices, current negotiations and choreographic shifts in the St. Joseph’s chapel The discourse defined above, except for the ecumenical perspective, remains rel-

evant and is repeatedly articulated during festive days in the St. Joseph’s chapel.

However, the devotional lexicon shared by the pilgrims there has been constantly revised by the clergy and the visitors alike through exclusion, restriction, and oth-

er kinds of transformations that affected practices embedded within the “specific” tradition of veneration of the Lady of Letnica. What makes up the “specificity” of

the continued worship of Letnica and, respectively, the St. Joseph’s chapel by the Roma pilgrims (regardless of their religious belonging)? In the discourse followed by the diocesan clergy, it is the emphasis on and the prevalence of the “material economy of the sacred” that explicitly distinguishes the religiosity of the Roma

people, be they Muslims or Christians.54 Their way of building relations with the unseen is frequently defined as a phenomenon sui generis, which has been to some extent influenced by Islamic tradition but does not fully correspond with it. It

is rather simply classified in terms of ethnicity, and rarely situated in relation to

theological or social scientific approaches that explore “lived” religion in its various manifestations.

To illustrate the position described above, one of the diocesan priests recalled how at some point before the Assumption Day, the clergy had decided to replace the

statue of the Virgin Mary with a Child with a new one. The Roma pilgrims coming on the first day of the pilgrimage were very affected by the changes and they

“demanded that we return their Mother to them.”55 Given the significance the dev-

otees attached to the physical sense of connection (direktnost) with the statue as an

embodied sanctity, the clergymen decided to put the old statue in its original place.

Generally, addressing negotiations with material objects as a marker to define the “specific” tradition established in Letnica and replicated in the St. Joseph’s chapel

involves divergent speculations regarding a set of vernacular practices that shapes a 54 David Morgan, “Material Culture of Lived Religion,” in Mind and Matter: Selected Papers of the Nordik 2009 Conference for Art Historians, ed. Johanna Vakkari (Helsinki: Helsingfors, 2010), 25.

55 Personal interviews conducted in Skopje in 2019.

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symbolic tie between these two sites of worship.

For instance, the differences in the color and shape of the candles lit on the pedestals can counter the multivocality as a vital feature of the pilgrimage.56 As one of

the helpers from the parish put it, yellow candles are mainly used in the Orthodox

tradition while white candles commonly refer to the Latin one. At the same time, according to my observations of other local shrines, including both Muslim sites

and loci of “joint” worship, Muslims associate yellow candles with Orthodox practice for Muslim pilgrims, while white candles are linked to veneration of mausoleums of saints (awliya). The latter association could emerge from the practice of

creating shrines dedicated to “anonymous saints” in the private houses and streets

of local Romani urban neighborhoods.57 Such candles are called “Muslim,” and

in many mausoleums the caretakers strictly ask to light them only. Thus, the use of a certain type of candle during the ritual often serves to articulate religious affiliation of the sanctuary and the dominance of one or another confessional dis-

course. Apparently, in this way the sanctuary is distinguished from the surrounding religioscape. Likewise, the identity boundaries of those present in the church are actualized within the framework of the “joint” pilgrimage, symbolically drawn every

time devotional candles are used.58 Indeed, although in practice the above prescrip-

tions can remain nominal, actions associated with ritual objects (candles) in many cases continue to embody and objectify boundaries, at least within individual prac-

tices. Although many Muslim visitors do not attach much symbolic importance to

the choice of the candle, in private conversations some of them complain that they would rather light white (i.e. Muslim) candles. However, as they report, “White

candles are not offered. We are Muslims, but they sell only yellow ones. They do

56 John Eade and Michael J. Sallnow, “Introduction,” in Contesting the Sacred: The Anthropology of Christian Pilgrimage, ed. John Eade and Michael J. Sallnow (London and New York: Routledge, 1991), 15.

57 Ksenia Trofimova, “Transforming Islam among Roma communities in the Balkans: a case of popular religiosity,” Nationalities Papers 45, no. 4 (July 2017): 8, https://doi.org/10.1080/00905992.20 17.1302925.

58 Robert Hayden, “Religioscape: concept, indicators and scales of competitive sharing through time,” in Antagonistic Tolerance: Competitive Sharing: Competitive Sharing of Religious Sites and Spaces (London: Routledge, 2016), 25-49.

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not sell white candles. Just yellow ones, for them (for Christian pilgrims).”59

Some visitors take “proper” candles from home or buy them from enterprising merchants coming from their community. For a number of Muslim pilgrims, the

use of yellow (i.e. Christian) candles serves as a kind of “tribute to” the rules that are set by the “owners” of

the place. For others, the choice does not matter since this holy place unites all devotees in their conversation

with God and the Virgin Mother, and implies blurring of the boundaries and devaluing of their visual mark-

ers. So, the choice of candles to use in ritual practice

demonstrates how pilgrims situationally negotiate the issue of religious frontiers and affiliations. This specific case that remains mostly invisible to the observer sheds

Lighting candles

light on a variety of situations regarding power relations and hierarchies, their in the courtyard of

St. Joseph's chapel.

manifestation and articulations within the pilgrimage. Various choreographies set Photo by Ksenia by both the organizers and the pilgrims are more clearly seen in the case of other Trofimova, 2017. vernacular practices when the issue of prohibitions and prescriptions is more acute.

Some devotional habits were “legitimated,” while others were denounced, condemned as “inappropriate,” and prohibited.60

The ritual circuit made inside the chapel with a sacrificial animal—a practice pop-

ular in Letnica and beyond—had been repeatedly criticized and finally forbidden, while the offering of the animal to the church as well as the practice of walking the animal around the building must be occasionally permitted by the clergy. Another

popular practice observed in Letnica, the ritual of wrapping a thread around the building of a chapel, was banned several years ago. Wrapping a religious build-

ing or another ritual object with a thread is a common vernacular practice aimed 59 Personal interviews with a Muslim woman conducted in Skopje in 2017.

60 Priests avoided referring to them as magic.

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at overcoming problems associated with childbearing

and fertility.61 Even though the belt woven from the

threads was defined in one of the church reports from the 1970s as a “holy” belt of “fertility,” 62 the practice

was forbidden since it “implies commercial compo-

nent” and therefore “comes into conflict with norms of the Church.”63

Since “the structure of worship if often elastic enough

to allow ‘others’ to join in,” the limits of what is per-

mitted during the pilgrimage to the St. Joseph’s chapel retain a certain degree of flexibility on a practical lev-

el.64 Worship at a holy site is commonly preceded or accompanied by making a vow/intention (zavet/ni-

jet), that sets up the list of practices carried out at the Offering a sacrifical animal (lamb) at the chapel doors. Photo by Ksenia Trofimova, 2017.

shrine.65 Whereas zavet implies establishing reciprocal

relations and serves as a structural resource of the pilgrimage (in terms of efficacy), visitors use various tactics66 to perform their devotional acts “properly.” Even if

this performance is incompatible sometimes with the Church’s guidelines, it is in

accordance with the “established tradition” and pilgrims’ vows. Currently, almost every pilgrim seeks the clergy’s permission to offer the church a sacrificial animal

(a lamb). If a priest or an assistant agree, the pilgrims quietly look through the open front doors of the chapel with the lamb or make a step inside the chapel in order to demonstrate the Lady her gift, the fulfillment of their vow. As far as I could observe, some visitors touched the statue with the threads and then left them

among other offerings for a while so that they could be filled with grace. Threads 61 Biljana Sikimić, “Dynamic Continuity of a Sacred Place: Transformation of Pilgrim’s Experiences of Letnica in Kosovo,” Southeastern Europe 41, no. 1 (2017), 51-52, https://doi.org/10.1163/1876333204101003; Ilić, “Kultna mesta”, 159-160; Tatomir Vukanović, “Gypsy Pilgrimages to the Monastery of Gračanica in Serbia,” Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society 45 (1966), 19-20.

62 Gabrić, “Izvor života”, 9.

63 Personal interviews conducted in Skopje in 2014.

64 Albera, “Crossing the Frontiers,” 238.

65 Tanas Vrazhinovski, Narodna traditsiia. Religiia. Kultura (Skopje: Matica Makedonska, 1999), 149-156.

66 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (London: University of California Press, 1984).

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can be also found tied on window bars. The priests serving during the pilgrimage, as well as the lay-helpers, tend to notice those tactics and try to keep a fragile bal-

ance in these cases. During my last visit in 2019 a woman—a Muslim Roma in her 40s—entered the chapel. She came with her daughter-in-law and her mother, both

non-Roma German citizens. After visiting the chapel, she approached a group of

lay helpers and asked which of the priests could help in carrying out the ritual with the threads since her daughter-in-law cannot get pregnant. In a brief conversation held in three languages (Macedonian, English, and German) the priest and his assistant gently explained to them that this devotional action is not welcomed by

the Church. The priest witnessed that this place is indeed famous for healings, and since he learned that the daughter-in-law and her mother were Catholic, he suggested they pray together for the grace of the Lady and that he give them a blessing. The Roma woman had left Skopje before the shrine’s organizers had imposed

the most recent restrictions, and was confused with the clergyman’s reaction to her request. Her expectations that had been established in Letnica were not fulfilled

and she kept looking in vain for someone who could help in performing the ritual.

This case along with other descriptions illustrates a choreographic shift that clearly indicates changes in the Diocese’s policy and an intention to unilaterally stan-

dardize pilgrimage practices within the contextualized framework of norms and appropriate scenarios.67 The context in which normative frames are adjusted and

the dominance of the church institution over the pilgrimage is demonstrated, including contested practices, might be set by localization of the present tradition in the multi-confessional space of the capital city. Skopje had served as a

platform for socio-political transformations and a testing ground for competing nation- and identity-building policies.68 In light of these dramatically shifting socio-political realities, the religioscape of Skopje might reflect current power negotiations, especially the desire of various ethnic and religious communities to establish and mark their presence within the shared urban space through visualization of 67 Henig, “Contested Choreographies,” 135.

68 Goran Janev, “Narrating the Nation, Narrating the City,” Cultural Analysis 10 (2011): 3-21; Ljupco Risteski, “Monuments and Urban Nationalism: The Skopje 2014 Project,” Antropologija 16, no. 3 (2016): 49-70.

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symbolic boundaries. Noteworthy, the narrative of the “lived” faith transmitted

by the Church officials in their descriptions and interpretations of the pilgrimage

tradition in question does not merge into the narrative of ecumenism and social mission of the Catholic Church, as it has before, but opens discussion focused on frontiers and disunity of the local (urban) ethnic and religious communities.

St. Joseph’s chapel as compared to its prototype, the Letnica church, is currently not

only spatially closer to the institutional center of the diocese, but to other religious institutions. It is also nearer to the homes of the majority of its Muslim Roma visitors. Spatial proximity, because it provides frequent routine interactions, results

in increased awareness about the processes of building religious identity that have been played out in the Roma Muslim communities over the last decades. I think

it’s safe to assume that the current Church policies on the grounds reflect greater

sensitivity to those negotiations that refer to intra-religious and intra-communal polyphony present among the local Roma Muslims, namely, the ongoing debates

on authenticity, purity of faith, and its “proper” practice. Generally, the religious identity frontiers being a matter of discursive processes are shaped across multiple

scales and are affected by individual occasional pragmatics, broad narratives and contextual institutional policies adjusting the idea and the sense of belonging. Even

if most of the pilgrims define themselves as Muslims and their identity is strong,

their understanding of Muslimness is, as it is typical for the “lived”69 religiosity, quite flexible, occasionally controversial and implies a variety of discursive maneuvers.

Many of my interlocutors shared the vision that holy sites (such as Christian and

Muslim shrines) are open to any believer. The manner in which relations between different groups of pilgrims set the scene for combined worship is usually seen by my interlocutors from a different perspective. One’s experience of coexistence

with the Other within the space of the pilgrimage was seamlessly inscribed in

day-to-day patterns of routinized neighborly relations and was mostly interpreted

without referring to the policies of religious institutions and their mediation. As a 69 Meredith B. McGuire, Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 185-213.

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local Muslim (Sufi) religious leader put it, mutual non-interference is a principal way that pilgrims and the clergy in Letnica treated each other’s boundaries: “They

understood what kind of place it was!”70 Their vernacular hermeneutics operates with

categories and hierarchies of a different order. Pilgrims’ and the clergy’s shared sense of presence in the same space of grace, communication with transcendental powers, recognition of similar existential conditions, and expectations related to

the efficacy of devotional practices that mediates relations between them and shapes

horizontal and vertical ties during the pilgrimage. As I have learned from one of

the priests, one could hardly recall the cases of conversion to Catholicism in the context of the pilgrimage to Letnica, when it comes to Muslim Roma.

At the same time, those devotions that have been traditionally carried out at the

Christian sites are nowadays a matter of contestation: they become a sticking point in discussions revolving around the issue of Islamic tradition and are often devalued and stigmatized by a “new generation” of local religious leaders.71

I have become accustomed to many Muslims’ ambivalent attitude toward worship at Christian holy sites: even members of the same religious group (a Sunni jamaat or a Sufi fellowship) regardless of their age and social background expressed op-

posed views on the topic. One of the Sufi sheikhs I interviewed several times in

Niš (Serbia) nostalgically recalled his annual family pilgrimage to the Orthodox

monastery of Gračanica and, moreover outlined basic principles a Muslim should adhere to in worshiping such a place:

The monastery is a place designed for everyone. A Muslim can spell ‘amen,’ but cannot make the sign of the cross. And one can also recite Surah Al-Fatiha.

[Interviewer: Right in the church?] You need to enter the church.

[Interviewer: Standing in front of the icon?] No, right here. A Muslim will not approach the icon; there is no one present there. A Muslim completes his own 70 Personal interview conducted in Skopje in 2019.

71 Those religious activists that insist on rethinking traditional forms of piety, even from divergent and competing perspectives, are often generically called as “new generation” (nova generacija) or just with an adjective “new” (novi).

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job; the priest completes his own.72 Another spiritual leader, a Sufi sheikh from Skopje depicted his visitations to Let-

nica in a different way. He recalled festive atmosphere of the pilgrimage: the fair that had been regularly organized there attracted many young men. He stressed that his experience there had no religious connotations. In his view, approaching such an experience from the position of worship turns such a profane visitation into the practice of idolatry (širk) and therefore, is automatically condemned.

Some of my interlocutors among the Catholic clergy and parishioners noted the

lack of initiatives in religious dialogue and the indifference and ignorance among the lay believers in relation to the religious culture of the Other. These observations

accentuate the social and cultural distance rather than cohesion at the grassroots

level. In this context, the Other, whose image is being shaped in the emerging narrative of social and cultural fragmentation, is portrayed as the one that rather maintains the distance and keeps away from traditional devotional visitations of the St. Joseph’s chapel than provides a basis for continued “lived” ecumenism.

The annual decrease in the number of Roma devotees visiting the St. Joseph’s chap-

el—in general and in relation to the situations familiar to my interlocutors—was interpreted by a lay-helper as deriving from exclusivist tendencies of the “new religious leaders” among the Muslim Roma. The clergy recognize the lack of organized missionary activities (as part of social ministry projects) and explain it in similar rhetoric, i.e. by unwillingness to provoke potential religion-based tensions.

In this context, I would assume that prohibition of a distinctive devotional act, such as tying a red thread around the building, is rather targeted at outsiders and aimed at making the contested nature of the pilgrimage less visible.

At present, there are no sermons or meetings with the bishop for the Muslim pilgrims specifically, while communication between the pilgrims and the clergy

usually comes down to either obtaining permission to perform a particular devo-

tional act or having brief personal conversations. It seems to me that in the absence 72 Personal interviews conducted in Niš in 2014.

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of organized mass interaction between the clergy and the non-Catholic pilgrims, their communication is individualized. Interactions are more situational and both

parties distance themselves from each other. Noteworthy, at this stage, only a few visitors seek priests’ blessing.

While the overwhelming majority of pilgrims to the St. Joseph’s chapel are Mus-

lim Roma who follow their “specific tradition” there, their religious affiliations are rarely displayed within the repertoire of demonstrative piety. In general, the ver-

nacular devotional lexicon is rather “neutral” and usually lacks those visual markers that would clearly distinguish one religious tradition from another, and define one

of them as Muslim. Even though the Muslim pilgrims present in the chapel are concerned about the issue of religious identity and express a distinct attitude to-

ward the question of “proper” practice of faith, they usually do not manifest their religious affiliation explicitly. This applies in particular to gestural practices and

vestimentary coding. Only a few pilgrims raise their hands in a Muslim way and recite the Islamic formulas out loud, and only a few of them introduce vestimen-

tary markers associated with Islamic tradition in the symbolic space of the chapel.

At the same time, one image stands out in the familiar year-round decoration of the chapel—a photo of the statue of the Virgin Mary of Rivald, a Catholic church

known as a popular site of worship of Roma devotees in Poland. The caption under the photo is written in Macedonian and reads: Majka na ciganite, “The Mother (the

Lady) of the Roma people.” This image and the text accompanying it tend to high-

light an ethnic dimension of the pilgrimage site (and subsequently the tradition of worship of Letnica and the St. Joseph’s chapel) and inscribe Roma pilgrims into

the broad Marian cult and Catholic discourse. As one of the lay helpers put it, the

image was offered by one of the pilgrims and, by initiative of the clergy, is annually

placed in the chapel next to the statue of the Virgin Mary with a Child on the days of pilgrimage.

CONCLUDING REMARKS The St. Joseph’s chapel as a site of worship has been constructed mainly by inertia, in hand with the pilgrimage to Letnica and based on a symbolic tie established between them. This is manifested in different ways—through devotional scenarios VOLUME 4 ISSUE 2 | SUMMER 2020

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offered and followed by all the actors involved, and mediated by the vow, as well as

through the narrative memory that recreates episodes of the traditional pilgrimage

and (re)constructs the image of a holy site. Meanwhile, as joint venerations “seem to react quickly to their sociopolitical context,” I have documented that the narra-

tives shaped around the pilgrimage to Letnica along with the traditional repertoire of demonstrative piety are being “revised” in case of the St. Joseph’s chapel.73 The

revisions I traced were made according to the respective changing social realities.

Thus, the ecumenical line has been erased from the public discourse as being contextually irrelevant. The focus has shifted to and fixed on the universal narrative of

the “lived” faith that allows multiple interpretations and legitimations portraying a

holy site as an inclusive place that tends to bring together distinct traditions while simultaneously allowing individuals to keep their religious identities. Despite the

“from above” tendency to standardize the devotional scenario for all the pilgrims

and the corresponding trend, observed at the grassroots, to neutralize demonstra-

tion (visualization) of religious differences, symbolic discreetness is manifested through individual actions, tactic compromises and creative decisions.

As I have already observed, the official narrative of the “lived” faith and cultural/

social cohesions continues to be referred to in the interpretations shared by all par-

ties involved in the worship of the St. Joseph’s chapel. Meanwhile, unlike Letnica, the St. Joseph’s chapel seems to be of less strategic value for the Diocese and, being “specific” and contested, is put “in the shadows”: it doesn’t become a subject of rich reporting by the local or regional church media and it is not mentioned in public

discussions about the trajectories of development of the Catholic Church in the

region. The territory of the church feast is discrete: the main parish activities are

organized in the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Mother Teresa Memorial House, while the St. Joseph’s chapel is designed for continuity sui generis unfolding “specific” tradition of the joint veneration.

At the same time, while being entangled in a broader socio-political field and subsequently overshadowed, the St. Joseph’s chapel remains a significant point in local

imageries and cosmologies. It serves as a platform for reciprocal relations cutting 73 Albera, “Crossing the Frontiers,” 241.

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across multiple scales. The symbolic capital of this Catholic site, its reputation of a holy place is being maintained by narrations of miraculous healings that took

place after annual religious activities at the chapel. I have also shown that the broad scenario of the pilgrimage is being written and revised by all parties: the clergy

and the pilgrims alike are involved in replicating and adjusting the repertoire of

vernacular practices associated with pilgrimage to Letnica and similar shrines. The

St. Joseph’s chapel as a site of worship is constructed through a subtle and inter-

active management process in which the strategy to standardize the devotional lexicon meets tactics to bypass the restrictions, and the limits of what is permitted

remain occasionally flexible to avoid potential tensions. At the same time, without the ideologically oriented narrative able to back up the “specific” tradition played out in the St. Joseph’s chapel, its symbolic space is created rather through private narrations shared by the devotees and the clergy, while currently the chapel as a holy site remains in the shadow of the main stage, the Letnica.

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Sharing of Religious Sites and Spaces, edited by Robert M. Hayden et al., 25-49.

London: Routledge, 2016.

Henig, David. “Contested Choreographies of Sacred Spaces in Muslim Bosnia.”

In Choreographies of Shared Sacred Sites: Religion, Politics and Conflict Resolution, edited by Elazar Barkan and Karen Barkey, 130-162. New York: Columbia University Press, 2014.

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Ilić, Marija, Jovanović Vladan, Milosavljevič Bojana, Ratković Dragana, Sikimić Biljana and Čirković Svetlana. “Kultna mesta Kosova i Metohije.” Baština 15 (2003): 153-174.

Ilievski, Borče. “The Attitude of the Authorities of the People’s Republic of Macedonia Toward the Roman Catholic Church in the 1950s.” Radovi –

Zavod za hrvatsku povijest 46 (2014): 401-419. https://doi.org/10.17234/ RadoviZHP.46.12.

Janev, Goran. “Narrating the Nation, Narrating the City.” Cultural Analysis 10 (2011): 3-21.

Katalinić, Ante. “Ekumensko značenje štovanja Marije u Hrvata.” Obnovljeni život: časopis za filozofiju i religijske znanosti 35, no. 5-6 (1980): 469-479.

Low, Setha M., and Denise Lawrence-Zúñiga. “Locating Culture.” In The Anthropology of Space and Place. Locating Culture, edited by Setha M. Low and Denise Lawrence-Zúñiga, 16-18. Blackwell, 2003.

Low, Setha M. “Towards an Anthropological Theory of Space and Place.”

Semiotica 175, no. 1/4 (2009): 21-37. https://doi.org/10.1515/semi.2009.041.

McGuire, Meredith B. Lived Religion: Faith and Practice in Everyday Life, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Malcolm, Noel. Kosovo: A Short History. New York: New York University Press, 1999.

Morgan, David. “Material Culture of Lived Religion.” In Mind and Matter:

Selected Papers of the Nordik 2009 Conference for Art Historians, edited by Johanna Vakkari, 14-31. Helsinki: Helsingfors, 2010.

Radisavljević-Čiparizović, Dragana. Hodočašća u XXI veku: studije slučaja tri svetilišta u Srbiji: Kalemegdanska Sv. Petka, Bogorodica Đuniska i Majka Božja Tekijska. Belgrade: Univerzitet u Beogradu, Filozofski fakultet, 2016.

Risteski, Ljupco. “Monuments and Urban Nationalism. The Skopje2014 Project.”

Antropologija 16, no. 3 (2016): 49-70.

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Sikimić, Biljana, “Dynamic Continuity of a Sacred Place: Transformation of

Pilgrim’s Experiences of Letnica in Kosovo.” Southeastern Europe 41, no. 1 (2017): 43-58, https://doi.org/10.1163/18763332-04101003.

_____. “Sveta putovanja: Letnica na Kosovu.” Glasnik Etnografskog Instituta SANU LXII, no. 1 (2014): 15-32. https://doi.org/10.2298/GEI1401015S.

Todorović, Dragan. “Roma Cult Places: The Roman Catholic Church in Niš,” in

Roma Religious Culture, edited by Dragoljub B. Đorđević, 131-140 (Niš: Punta, 2003).

Turk, Alojz. Letnica. Marijansko Hodočasničko Svetište – Ekumenski Centar na

Kosovu. Majka Božja Crnagorska. Letnička Gospa – Zoja Cërnagore. Beograd: Blagovest, 1973.

Trofimova, Ksenia. “Constructing Holy Spaces in a Multicultural Milieu: The Case of Zajde Bašće Shrine in Niš (Serbia).” State, Religion and Church 3, no. 2 (2016): 79-101. https://doi.org/10.22394/2311-3448-2016-3-2-79-101.

_____. “Transforming Islam among Roma Communities in the Balkans:

A Case of Popular Religiosity.” Nationalities Papers 45, no. 4 ( July 2017): 598612. https://doi.org/10.1080/00905992.2017.1302925.

Urošević, Atanasije. “Katolička župa Crna Gora u Južnoj Srbiji (Letnička župa).”

Glasnik Skopskog Naučnog Društva. XIII, no. 7 (1934): 159-170.

Vrazhinovski, Tanas. Narodna traditsiia. Religiia. Kultura. Skopje: Matica Makedonska, 1999.

Vukanović, Tatomir. “Gypsy Pilgrimages to the Monastery of Gračanica in Serbia.” Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society 45 (1966): 17-26.

Zefi, Frok Župa Letnica, Zajednica Kosovskih Hrvata “Letnica.” http://www.hkm. lu/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Zupa-Letnica.pdf.

Zlatanović, Sanja. “Letnica: slika prevazilaženja granica i njeni ostaci.” Slike kulture i sad. Zbornik Etnografskog Instituta SANU 24 (2008): 179-191.

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SOURCES “Bogatstvo srca I ljubavi (Uz Blagdan sv. Obitelji),” Blagovijest XIV, no. 1-2 (1941): 22-24.

Čekada, Smiljan Franjo. “Smiljan Franjo. Okružnica” Blagovijest XIV, no. 3 (1941): 41-51.

“Sirotište Sv. Josipa.” Blagovijest XIV, no. 1-2 (1941): 53-55.

Rimokatolička crkva u NR Makedoniji. Arhiv Yugoslavije, 1955, 31, 12, 144 Savez-

na komisija za verska pitanja [Federal Commission for Religious Affairs], The State Archives of the SFRY.

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108

ERIKA VASS

Radna: The Holy Shrine of the Multinational Banat Region (Romania)

Erika Vass, Ph.D., is the Lead Curator of the Transylvanian building complex in the Hungarian Open Air Museum. She completed her doctoral thesis, Pilgrimage as a Ritual Drama (A búcsú és a búcsújárás mint rituális dráma), in the European Ethnology Doctoral Program of Eötvös Loránd University in 2007. She examined the relation between religion and national identity by conducting fieldwork at Mariazell (Austria), Csíksomlyó (Șumuleu, Romania), and other shrines in the Carpathian Basin. She has also conducted research on the coexistence of nationalities and denominations in Transylvania.

She also participates in the collection of tangible heritage and has arranged donations of over a thousand objects to the Hungarian Open Air Museum's collections.

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“Pilgrimage is exodus from the home environment where everything reminds people

of manual labour; it is liberation from the ties of human relations, it is surmounting everyday life. This is the peasant quest for spiritual solitude, the transfiguration of the Christian Catholic soul.”1

INTRODUCTION

T

he depopulated areas of the Kingdom of Hungary were settled with people of different nationalities

in the 18th century after the Ottoman rule. New

inhabitants frequently brought new cults with themselves.

In the spirit of a strong Mary-cult these soon exceeded

the borders of the nationalities and united Catholics of regions near and far regardless of language or nationality. The spiritual radiance of shrines unites visiting nation-

alities concerning the essence of the cult. Devoutness in public or private, songs and prayers were also transmitted

to each other. Shrines—irrespectively of the nationality of

the territory—soon united the population of a region in

this common cult. The protective cloak of the Blessed Vir-

gin has held together the pilgrims of the Carpathian Basin ever since.

Radna, located on the banks of the river Mureş, is the sacral heart of the Banat A saint card from

the shrine at Radna.

region.2 The shrine has united the region’s Catholics for centuries in veneration of Early 20th century, Virgin Mary regardless of their nationality and native language. All nationalities from Szeged. living in the region take part in the pilgrimage of Radna (part of Romania since 1920, before that belonging to Hungary): Roman Catholic Bulgarians, Croatians

(called Krashovani), Hungarians, Germans, Roma, Romanians, and Slovakians venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary together. Additionally, believers of the Orthodox and Greek Catholic Church also visit the pilgrimage site. Until the borders

changed after the First World War, a great number of pilgrims visited Radna every 2

Sándor Bálint, A hagyomány szolgálatában. Összegyűjtött dolgozatok (Budapest: Magvető, 1981), 121.

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Shrine at Radna, 2018.

Photo by Erika Vass.

year from the region of the Great Hungarian Plain (Kecskemét, Szeged—Hungary, and Senta—present-day Serbia). These pilgrims from different regions often

prayed together (or simply saw one another doing so) and thus learned the prayers, devotions, and songs of others and often adapted them to their own religious routine.

I visited Radna for the first time in 1996. I participated in a research project organized at the Department of Ethnography of the University of Szeged from 1996 to 2000 to inventory the gallery of votive pictures in the aisle of the church. We

then visited votive donors with the aim to find out the history of these images and

devotional objects.3 One focus of my thesis research between 2001 and 2005 was the pilgrimage event commemorating the birth of Virgin Mary. Additionally, in 2018, I conducted research on the motivations of pilgrims to Radna who belong to different ethnic groups.

3

Gábor Barna, ed., “Mária megsegített” Fogadalmi tárgyak Máriaradnán, 1–2. Devotio Hungarorum 9. (Szeged: Néprajzi Tanszék, 2002). Erika Vass, “Bánsági portyázások. A szegedi néprajzi tanszék máriaradnai kutatása,” in “Szent ez a föld...”. Néprajzi írások az Alföldről, eds. Gábor Barna, László Mód, and András Simon (Szeged: Néprajzi Tanszék, 2005), 222–230.

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THE PILGRIMAGE AS A RITUAL DRAMA Pilgrimage—as pointed out by Arnold van Gennep4—may be considered a rite of

passage connecting the profane and sacred space, when earthly time is suspended for believers. The believer encounters God at the sacred place that connects the earthly and heavenly worlds, and s/he is reborn having been both purged and pu-

rified. This encounter with the Sacred provides strength and grace for the believer to deal with the problems of everyday life. But pilgrimage is not only a penitential

journey; it can also be an opportunity for participants for exceeding themselves. A

transformation takes place, pilgrims gradually empty. Through this spiritual journey, pilgrims may also confront their own personal strengths and weaknesses.

Victor Turner further developed the rites of passage notion, creating an even more thorough interpretation of being outside of temporary time and space. He introduced the concepts of liminality and communitas (community, equal individuals

who participates in the rites together). Concerning pilgrimages his work, co-au-

thored by Edith Turner with the title Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture, has to be mentioned. In this, the authors emphasize that pilgrimages have an initiation

quality: the pilgrims enter a new, higher level of existence, previously unknown to them. At the same time, the Turners differentiate pilgrimages from rites of passage

and label them liminoid phenomena. While christening, confirmation, and ordi-

nation are irreversible rites of passage, the most significant sacraments of voluntary pilgrimage such as penitence and communion cannot be repeated.5 Another basic point of Victor Turner’s research is to use drama as a basic metaphor. One type of social drama is a ritual process, just like the pilgrimage.6

In my thesis, I considered pilgrimage to be a ritual drama.7 Pilgrimage may be

compared to a drama, except that the believers are not simple onlookers to events, 4 5 6 7

Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage (Chicago: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960), 185. https:// doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226027180.001.0001 Victor Turner and Edith Turner, Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), 32-33.

Victor Turner, Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors. Symbolic Action in Human Society (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1974), 166–228.

Erika Vass, A búcsú és búcsújárás mint rituális dráma (Szeged: Private publication, 2010).

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but instead have an active role in them. Believers become involved in the event that serves as the basis of the ceremony, namely Jesus Christ’s Stations of the Cross, and

are participants in and through a specific collectivity where communitas can be ex-

perienced. The ritual drama begins at home with the preparations and includes the

channeling process after the celebrations. The center of the ritual drama is a sacred place, where the believer—full of problems and frustrations—leaves all of their

concerns behind and experiences a catharsis through the communal rite during the encounter with the saint.

The visual and musical effects during the pilgrimage intensify the dramatic impact of the event, and the believers express their love and adoration for the Blessed Virgin Mary by singing. The setting includes not only the sacred objects, but also the natural environment. Music, silence, movement and the visual experience help the process of self-transformation.

The ritual drama provides a possibility for reflecting deep and hidden emotions: the believers express their inner feelings either by singing, motion, or prayer. During

the Vigil, they confess their sins to the priest—and through him to God—and also to the Blessed Virgin Mary. On these occasions, their catharsis manifests itself in

crying, hysterical sobs, exclamations, kneeling, and crawling on knees as close as

possible to the icons. These acts are seen to contribute to the healing of the soul.

During the pilgrimage, believers feel the presence of God with all of their senses.

As for the visual effect, the major issue is the aesthetical aspect of the shrine, en-

hancing religious devotion. Entering the church, believers may feel as if heaven has

opened up for them and they become part of a supernatural space, where they can worship and find the source of and final destination of their life.

Alongside visions, physical contact has a very important role too, as this way the

participants of the rite participate in the reality of the saint. The saint is “received” by touching the altars and crosses. The kiss has a similar importance: in Radna the believers kiss the high altar, or the statue of Jesus Christ on the cross held in the hands of the priest standing at the high altar. When entering the church, the use

of holy water is associated with purgation of sin, while at home, it enhances the feeling of the presence and protection of God.

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The emotional impact of the pilgrimage may be different for the participants, de-

pending on the strength of their faith, age, social background and the motivations

that inform their participation in the rite. The power and depth of their faith, the

capability of facing the challenges of life and the reality of death also depends on one’s age.

THE HISTORY OF THE SHRINE Charles I, also known as Charles Robert (Hungarian: Károly Róbert) settled the

Franciscan Order in Lipova (present-day Romania, formerly Lippa in Hungarian) in 1324. In 1551, after the Turkish army occupied the town, the monks evacuated to the other bank of the river Mureş to Radna.8 The Franciscan monks did much

to preserve Catholicism against the dominance of Islam during the period of the Ottoman rule.9

The monks came from the Bosnian province as the number of Hungarian Catholic

believers diminished due to the impact of Ottoman rule and the Reformation. At the same time many Krashovani escaped to this region from the southern territories taken by the Turkish army, and this is the reason why the Masses were held in their language too.10

At the shrine, a print from an Italian press portraying the image of the Scapular of

Our Lady of Mount Carmel (also known as the Brown Scapular) is the focus of

believers’ attention. In the lower edge of the simple paper picture there are the souls suffering in the Purgatory.11 The icon also demonstrates the fact that the aesthetic

value of a picture or a sculpture is a secondary factor in the process of becoming a devotional object.12 The picture was donated by an unknown person to the chapel

of Radna after the building had been ransacked by Turkish soldiers. In 1695, the Turkish soldiers set fire to all the pictures heaped in the middle of the chapel, but 8

Gábor Barna, “A kunszentmártoniak radnai búcsújárása,” Magyar Egyháztörténeti Vázlatok 3 (1991): 210.

9 András Dugonics, Radnai történetek (Szeged: Grün Orbán, 1810), 18-44.

10 Dugonics, Radnai történetek, 11–14.

11 Zoltán Szilárdfy, “A magyarországi kegyképek és –szobrok tipológiája és jelentése,” in Sándor Bálint and Gábor Barna, eds., Búcsújáró magyarok. A magyarországi búcsújárás története és néprajza (Budapest: Szent István Társulat, 1994), 337.

12 Barna, “A kunszentmártoniak radnai búcsújárása,” 211.

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the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary did not burn.13 The picture soon gained a reputation for being miraculous and became the symbol of Roman Catholicism on the border between Islam and the Orthodox Christianity.14

Hungary regained authority over the town as a result of the Treaty of Karlowitz

in 1699.15 During the 18th century, a great number of Roman Catholic Germans, Hungarians and Bulgarians were settled in the Banat in addition to Romanian and Serbian colonists.

The shrine became increasingly famous at the beginning of the 18th century after

devastating epidemics of plague had come to an end. The inhabitants of Arad were the first to make a pilgrimage to Radna to pray for the end of the epidemic in 1709.16

Later more and more pilgrims began to arrive to the shrine from other towns of the Great Hungarian Plain to express their gratitude for the dissipating of the plague epidemic. In the course of time, Radna developed into an important place of worship.17 The church, which is still extant, was consecrated by the archbishop of Esztergom

in 1820.18 The church and its environment were renewed at the turn of the 19th

and 20th century. The Stations of the Cross, the statues of the saints and the chapels were also built during these years.19 Locating the donating settlements on the

map, the catchment area of the shrine from before the First World War can be

clearly established. In this respect, pilgrims to Radna came from the towns of Sze-

ged, Kecskemét, Makó, Kiskunfélegyháza, Gyula, Szentes (present-day Hungary), Senta and Kikinda (present-day Serbia), Oradea, Deva, Timisoara, Caransebes (present-day Romania).20 This means that the pilgrimage constituted the way by 13 Világos Berkes-hegy avagy Máriának az isteni malaszt Annyának kegyelmes képe (Vác: Máramarossi Gottlieb Antal, 1796), 12–13.

14 Sándor Bálint, Boldogasszony vendégségében (Budapest: Veritas, 1944), 49-50.

15 Dugonics, Radnai történetek, 67.

16 Világos Berkes-hegy avagy Máriának az isteni malaszt Annyának kegyelmes képe, 48.

17 Bálint, Boldogasszony vendégségében, 50.

18 Pál Magyary, Mária-Radna és a Boldogságos Szt. Szűz kegyelmes képének története némi kegyelmek és csodák felsorolásával. Függelékül teljes imádságos könyv a ker. kath. hívek használatára (Temesvár: Private publication, 1902), 50-51.

19 Magyary, Mária-Radna és a Boldogságos Szt. Szűz kegyelmes képének története némi kegyelmek és csodák felsorolásával. Függelékül teljes imádságos könyv a ker. kath. hívek használatára, 58-83.

20 Barna, “A kunszentmártoniak radnai búcsújárása,” 235.

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which the religious communities of these settlements tied themselves to the sacred space, and became part of it.

In 1949 the communist regime disbanded Catholic religious orders and prohibited their activity. In spite of the communist suppression, groups of pilgrims continued

to flow to the shrine. It was in 1991 that the activity of the Franciscan Order was authorized again in Romania. However, in 2003, the order abandoned the shrine and entrusted its maintenance to the diocese of Timişoara.

The composition of nationalities of the region has changed in recent decades and

the number of Hungarians and Germans has decreased markedly. Most of the

Germans in Banat moved to Germany in the 1970s. However, they maintain their

connection to the sacred center of their homeland in various ways. As long as their

age and health permit, they regularly return to their birthplace, Radna. Besides

their religious motivations, these pilgrimages focus on visualizing or temporarily recreating these now extinct communities. The Germans who had moved to Ger-

many from Sântana (Romania) in the 1970s symbolically rebuilt the pilgrimage site of Radna in their new home. They go for a pilgrimage to the holy place of

Maria Lindenberg near Freiburg every year as if they continued the pilgrimage of Radna, preserving the old rituals (e.g. Mary-girls, songs sung in Radna, etc.).21

THE PILGRIMAGE PERFORMANCE OF SZEGED’S INHABITANTS I intend to present the course of pilgrimage on foot at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries with the help of the example of the inhabitants of Szeged, a town located 130 km from Radna.

According to the sources available, a group of people from Szeged visited the shrine

of Radna for the first time in 1711 or 1717.22 In the 18th and the 19th centuries, the cost of orchestral escort of the pilgrims departing to Radna and arriving from 21 Erzsébet Arnold, “Das virtuelle Dorf im Banat,” in Ortsbezüge Deutsche in und aus dem mittleren Donauraum, ed. Hans-Werner Retterath (Freiburg: Johannes-Künzig-Institut für ostdeutsche Volkskunde, 2001), 91-93.

22 Martin Roos and Maria Radna, Ein Wallfahrtsort im Südosten Europas II (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner, 2004), 479, 603.

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there was a regular item in the ledger of the city council.23 Demonstrating the popularity of the site, in the 19th century 4-5,000 people from Szeged participated in

the pilgrimage to Radna on the birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary on September 2 while their number was only about 1,000 before the years of the First World War.24

Specific rites led the individual out of the earthly world and helped him to be

purged of his sins. For example, before setting off to Radna, the believers offered an

apology to everyone whom they had problems with, because they wished to go to Radna with clear conscience.

The pilgrims departed to Radna on September 2. They set out accompanied by the

sound of bells, escorted by a priest and their loved ones as far as the borders of the town. In this rite the notion of the border itself represents a kind of transition, a distancing of the participants from their mundane life.

On the way, the men walked in front with the cross, and they were followed by the women and the girls. The aged, the sick and invalids traveled in a horse car-

riage. Clothing and food for the journey for the whole group were also kept on

the carriage. On their way to Radna, the pilgrims were accommodated in Mako, Csanádpalota (Hungary), Pecica and Arad (present-day Romania). Their hosts did not accept any money, because it was understood that Jesus Christ was effectively

visiting their houses with the arrival of the pilgrims. Instead, the pilgrims’ hosts

asked the travelers to say a prayer for them too in Radna. The voluntary pilgrimage also involved self-denial. Some of the believers made a resolution not to eat any cooked food during the pilgrimage to intensify the impact of the penance.

The pilgrims sang, prayed or just walked silently on their way to prepare for their

encounter with the heavenly world. During the journey, pilgrims entered all the churches on their way and made a stop at all the sacred places, like roadside

crucifixes and cemeteries, making sure to say a prayer at each site. At such times 23 János Reizner, Szeged története (Szeged: Szeged Szab. Kir. Város Közönsége, 1900), 131–132.

24 Sándor Bálint, A szögedi nemzet. A szegedi nagytáj népélete (Szeged: Móra Ferenc Múzeum, 1980), 387.

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the bells tolled, and the pilgrims were blessed by the priest of the local church.25

During the pilgrimage these activities were repeated day by day. The believers slow-

ly passed through the limits of the earthly world as they moved closer and closer to the sacred place of pilgrimage.26

When the pilgrims from Szeged caught sight of the spires of the church of Radna they got down on their knees, and greeted the Blessed Virgin Mary of Radna.27

They were then welcomed by a priest.28 The pilgrims had now reached the borders of the sacred world where they were accepted.

The believers crossed themselves with holy water on entering the church, which constituted a symbol for them that they had reached the limit of the earthly and

the heavenly worlds. To show their veneration towards the shrine, the pilgrims from Szeged kissed the floor of the church, then, with burning candles in their

hands, walked up to the devotional picture on the high altar to salute the Blessed Virgin Mary.29 Touching of the floor and the obeisance to the picture expressed

their reunion with the heavenly world.30 Many of the pilgrims wept with joy—a sign of the catharsis. After the welcome salutation, the pilgrims had a rest, some of them confessed their sins, and went through the Stations of the Cross. A number

of them also took on extra penance, such as crawling down to the banks of the Mureş on their knees, and washing themselves in the water of the river. This ritual washing symbolized the purgation of the soul.31

A pilgrimage had a connection to some age related transitions. For instance it was an unspoken rule in Szeged that young people were allowed to get married only after they had made their first pilgrimage to Radna.32

According to an initiatory rite (also known in other regions of Hungary33) those 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

Bálint, A szögedi nemzet. A szegedi nagytáj népélete, 389-390.

Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, 185.

Bálint, A szögedi nemzet. A szegedi nagytáj népélete, 395.

Bálint, A szögedi nemzet. A szegedi nagytáj népélete, 391.

Bálint, A szögedi nemzet. A szegedi nagytáj népélete, 395.

Van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, 185.

Bálint, A szögedi nemzet. A szegedi nagytáj népélete, 395.

Bálint, A szögedi nemzet. A szegedi nagytáj népélete, 387.

Gábor Barna, Búcsújárók (Budapest: Lucidus, 2001), 267–278.

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who were on their first visit to Radna asked someone with more experience in the

pilgrimage to the holy shrine to provide them the so-called pilgrimage baptism, or Radna baptism. The pilgrim’s godmother or godfather would baptize his or her godchild with the holy water taken from the font of the church. The godchild received a new name, which was generally the name of his or her baptizer. This

was the so-called ”Radna name.” Some sorts of archaic notions tied to the magical power of names are also apparent in this tradition: the young pilgrim got rid of his or her sins, since the power of evil knew only their former name. The godparents of

Radna were also invited for the wedding of these young people, and testified that

the pair had participated in the pilgrimage and thus had become worthy of the sacred bond of marriage.34

People of Szeged thought that young people who visited the castle of Solymos

(present-day Soimos, Romania) during their stay in Radna could not be blessed, and their pilgrimage was useless.35 Purgation and rebirth were possible only in the sacred space, and leaving that place for the sake of any kind of profane entertainment was forbidden.

At the end of the pilgrimage separation from the saint took place before returning

to Szeged. The believers bade farewell to the saint: bowing before the sacred pic-

ture, filling their jugs with water from Radna, and bringing presents connected to the shrine. In general, this present was a small paper icon to be kept in their prayer

book, which had been blessed by the priest. Some tapped their icon to the high altar, where the sacred image of the Blessed Virgin Mary was exposed.36 Through these acts, they became parts of the saint, and believed that in times of trouble they

could count on the help of the Virgin Mary. Before setting off, they broke off a green branch of a tree.37 The green leaves of the tree symbolized the rebirth of the soul.

34 35 36 37

Bálint, A szögedi nemzet. A szegedi nagytáj népélete, 395-396.

Bálint, A szögedi nemzet. A szegedi nagytáj népélete, 394.

Bálint, A szögedi nemzet. A szegedi nagytáj népélete, 395-396.

Sándor Bálint, “A szegediek búcsújárása Radnára,” Ethnographia 47 (1936): 318.

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During the eight days of the pilgrimage many of the believers left behind in Szeged

assembled in the evenings for a procession and were praying with burning candles in their hands.38 Although eight days were too long for them to be away from their

homes, they made their own pilgrimage in the sacred place of the town. They wait-

ed for their loved ones arriving from Radna in the border of the town. The pilgrims

greeted them with the words: ”Be part of our prayer and pilgrimage everyone who was not there!” The girls were dressed in wedding gowns, and were told: ”You have

been in Radna; you may get married!” The young men had a bridegroom flower

pinned to their chest. After this, the believers went first to St. Demetrius church, then to their own church, while the bells of the church were tolling. After a short thanksgiving, they returned to their home.39 They returned to the profane world

with a state of mind quite different from the one before the pilgrimage, because they had gained strength from the encounter with God. If they had gone through a critical period in their life before the pilgrimage they had time to get over it.

In everyday life, the pictures of Virgin Mary of Radna hanging on the wall reminded the believers of the experience of their encounter with the heavenly world. These

pictures became representative pieces in the house’s formal living room, spreading in this way the cult of the sacred shrine in time and space.

After the First World War the new border between Hungary and Romania put an end to the two centuries’ old custom of Hungarian pilgrimages to Radna. As the

believers did not want to pass up the pilgrimage on the birthday of Virgin Mary, between 1924 and 1942 they organized a ”pilgrimage of Radna” in the Franciscan church of Szeged40 symbolically reconstituting the sacred place in their hometown.41

38 Bálint, A szögedi nemzet. A szegedi nagytáj népélete, 387.

39 Bálint, A szögedi nemzet. A szegedi nagytáj népélete, 396-399.

40 Vass, A búcsú és a búcsújárás mint rituális dráma, 68-73.

41 Jan Assmann, A kulturális emlékezet. Írás, emlékezés és politikai identitás a korai magaskultúrákban (Budapest: Atlantisz, 1999), 40.

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PILGRIMAGE TO RADNA AT THE TURN OF THE 21ST CENTURY Scenario As for its appearance, the contemporary form of the pilgrimage has changed a great deal compared to the beginning of the 1900s: the former diversity of symbols

and the rites have simplified. Instead of several days of walking, now the pilgrimage is made by train, bus or car and takes only one or two days. Although the length

of time of the pilgrimage is shortened, the encounter with the saint remains in the focus. The liminal part of the rite of passage is also completely preserved.

Some communities prepare for the pilgrimage by praying in the days before setting out for the journey. Some pray the nine days’ prayer of Lourdes.

The pilgrimage on the birthday of Virgin Mary takes place September 6-8. The organizers create timeslots for the believers of different nationalities so that all

of them had an opportunity to access the holy site and glorify God and Virgin Mary in their native languages. The believers from the Bulgarian settlements (Vin-

ga, Dudestii Vechi) arrive on September 6 in the afternoon, so the evening vigil

and the Holy Masses on the following morning are conducted in their language.

The Holy Mass beginning at 11 a.m. on September 7 is dedicated to Romanian Greek Catholics. Krashovani arrive at the shrine around noon on September 7

from Lupac, Carasova and Clocotici. In the afternoon Roman Catholic Masses are held in Hungarian, Croatian and Romanian, respectively.

The Calvary hill with the Stations of the Cross behind the shrine provides a good

opportunity for believers of different ethnic groups to pray in parallel at the same

time. On September 7, the Bulgarian believers leave the church to let the Croatians

in, and walk up to pass the Stations of the Cross and then listen to the their priests’ homilies. At this time the Croatians begin to pass their Stations of the Cross. The

Greek Catholics assemble on the hill at another chapel to continue their prayer in the afternoon. They hold their liturgy at a chapel outside the church on September 8 as well.

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The pilgrims heading to Radna, irrespective of their nationality, depart from the The stations of the

cross performed by

cross at the Arad-Deva highway with flags in their hands and singing religious a group of Bulgarian songs. First, they greet the Virgin Mary at the grotto of Lourdes with songs and pilgrims, 2018. Photo prayers. From there they walk into the church, continue the greeting ceremony at

the high altar in front of the picture of the Virgin Mary of Radna, then go around the high altar. After that they go to the Calvary to go through the Stations of the Cross. Afterwards, they participate in the Holy Mass.

At 8 p.m. the believers pray the Holy Rosary in five languages (Hungarian, German, Romanian, Croatian and Bulgarian), followed by the adoration and then a short

procession passing the chapel of Lourdes. Beginning at midnight a Holy Mass in

Romanian is held. Romanian is the interlingua that everybody understands. After this the believers sing and pray until dawn. Most of the pilgrims spend the evening at houses, or in the bus; fewer remain in the church for an overnight vigil.

The church becomes crowded again for the Holy Mass in Croatian by 7 a.m. on

September 8. At the end of the ceremony the Krashovani bid farewell to the Virgin Mary; they do not wait for the festive Holy Mass. To pray in their native language is more important for them, since they can wholeheartedly connect to it.

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by Erika Vass.

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Many pilgrims arrive at dawn and in the early morning hours. On this day, Masses

are held in Hungarian, German and Romanian. The festive Holy Mass is held

every year by a bishop or an archbishop from Hungary or Romania in Hungarian, Romanian and German. After the Mass many of the pilgrims have to go and reach their train, but those who came by bus remain and participate in another Mass. Be-

fore leaving Radna, they bid farewell to the Virgin Mary at the grotto of Lourdes.

The pilgrims are waited by their relatives and friends at home. In their local church they participate in a thanksgiving Mass and leave for their houses.

The believers take time to buy devotional objects during the pilgrimage. Most of them eat the food that they had brought from home, or something like grilled steaks sold in the fair.

The Use of Space Now I will present certain scenes of the shrine in a chronological order parallel with the activities connected to them. This may give a glimpse into the dynamics and spiritual impact of the ritual drama.

On arriving to Radna, pilgrims walk to the chapel of Lourdes located on the place in front of the church to greet the Virgin Mary. This place is the scene of communal

and personal awe at the same time. The walls of the chapel are covered with marble

plates donated by the believers as a sign of their thanks. During the pilgrimage many of the participants come here alone, or in smaller groups, to light a candle or pray kneeling at the railing of the chapel.

One of the indispensable elements of the pilgrimage is passing the Stations of the Cross. The Bulgarians and the Krashovani go through the stations in an organized

way, in larger groups, led by their priests. The other small communities walk one after the other keeping a distance of one station; this way more groups can take part in the ceremony simultaneously.

The identification of their own individual fate with the history of Jesus Christ and

Virgin Mary has a deep impact on the emotions of the pilgrims and eases their tensions. Most of them burst into tears, and express their troubles at the Cross

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of Christ. The songs and the prayers said at the Stations of the Cross contribute to this catharsis. By the end of the songs, the faces of the pilgrims become visibly

relaxed, because through the religious songs they can tell their woes to the heavens, beg for the help of God and face the fact that compared to Jesus they are only tiny

creatures who will gain the grace after death at the cost of the punishment inflicted on them. The songs make them understand that they are not alone with their pains

as their Heavenly Mother, the Virgin Mary, also experienced great sufferings at the death of her son. There are songs telling the suffering of Jesus Christ in present

tense, thus making the believers able to experience the torments of Good Friday while at the same time announcing forgiveness and redemption. Passing through the Stations of Cross, the posture of the pilgrims changes, reflecting their inter-

nal state of mind. Sometimes they silently pray to God, immersed deep in their

thoughts, with their heads turned down, and their hands folded, and at other times they burst into tears.

The high altar is one of the most important places of communal and individual piety. On their arrival the believers walk to the high altar either individually or in

groups to greet the Virgin Mary at the sacred devotional picture. While circling the

high altar they touch or kiss the altar or the coverlet. Additionally, the Krashovani kiss Jesus Christ on the cross in the hands of the priest. The explanation for circling and kissing the altar is the devotional picture itself, and the relic in it. This is the

reason why the priest kisses the altar at the beginning and at the end of the Holy Mass. Although the pilgrims do not know the origin of the habit of kissing the altar, this rite obviously for them involves the veneration of the Sacrament and a

desire to touch it. The pilgrims continue praying in front of the image of the Virgin Mary and the circling around the altar in between the Masses and even at night too.

At the shrines, many believers confess their sins publicly, and announce their repentance to all the people present. Others, however, stand aside and find a more

intimate place for the sacred communication. The habit of circling the high altar, or the whole church crawling on their knees even several times, is a widespread ritual

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The parish priest's shrine, 2018. Photo by Erika Vass.

their hands. Some of the Roma complying with the sacrament of penance go up the several stairs leading to the church crawling on their knees.

Besides the high altar the other major center of the church is the cross right from

the entrance. While the high altar ties the believer to Mother Mary, the cross

represents a link to Jesus Christ. The cross is relatively far from the high altar, and

appears to be a more intimate place. People praying here generally prostrate in front of Jesus Christ. The paint on the knees of the statue of Jesus on the Cross is

entirely worn off, which shows that believers constantly touch the statue wishing to be as close to Jesus as possible.

One of the peaks of the pilgrimage is the night vigil in the church. During the vigil the attitude of the believers are self-possessed and humble, they give themselves up to the will of God, and they accept it. The participants of the ceremony are en-

dowed with a great power, which enables them to cope with the problems of their life. While singing repetitively and praying the rosary, people forget about their JOURNAL OF GLOBAL CATHOLICISM

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difficulties, express their pains, and feel relief from the burden of sin. Repeating the

refrains of the song allows them to feel that they are in the protective hands of their Heavenly Mother. Many of them cannot even sleep because the inspiring effect of

the sacred place. The groups of different nationalities either wait for the others to stop their song before beginning their own, or they sing or pray in a parallel manner. However, all can join the prayers in Romanian.

The leader of the group from Cermei expressed his feelings like this: “You carry

all of your burdens during the whole year. When you come here, you feel you can release them and leave all here. You can go home with a more eased soul. Not that the troubles and problems disappear, since everybody has struggles. But the strug-

gles can be left behind here, you feel, you can share them with someone. You know, all of us run here, and there, and nobody cares for the others. If we go home the strength remains there for a year.” A woman from Palota said: “I feel I am filled

with grace for a whole year. Life is so hard. I feel so fine when I am here. I would be strengthless if I were not able to come. I would be strengthless…”

In the aisle of the monastery the believers pour holy water into plastic bottles to take them home. In the aisle they have the opportunity to confess and there is an

exit from here to the court where they may order a Mass. Close to the entrance of the vestry there is a Cross, where the bystanders stop to say a prayer. I saw a woman who was hugging and kissing Jesus Christ on the Cross, and was speaking about

her pains in tears. In the aisle and on the two other upper floors there are the gal-

leries of the votive pictures, which are the proofs of the healings due to the Virgin Mary of Radna.

The aim of the pilgrimage is not only spiritual healing but also physical recov-

ery. People often consider an illness or a mishap as the manifestation of a divine punishment inflicted on them for some kind of a sin they themselves commit-

ted. The prayer for healing or relief from troubles is in fact a quest for grace and pardon, which requires whole-hearted repentance.42 The confession and the Holy 42 Gábor Klaniczay, “A rontás- és gyógyításelbeszélések struktúrája: maleficum és csoda,” in Démonikus és szakrális világok határán. Mentalitástörténeti tanulmányok Pócs Éva 60. születésnapjára, eds.

Katalin Benedek and Eszter Csonka-Takács (Budapest: MTA Néprajzi Kutatóintézet, 1999), 118.

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Pilgrims to the shine of Radna: (left) a Roma girl, 2005; (right) Csángó Hungarian from the Moldavia region, 2018. Photos by Erika Vass.

Communion have a key function from the point of view of healing. The penitent

confesses their sins committed against God to God himself through the priest. The verbalization of the sins results in relief and satisfaction. The confession may be

regarded as a symbolic death and rebirth. However, the Holy Communion is a

cultic act with the intent of initiation in which the Christians receive the body

end blood of Christ. On the one hand, the rite sanctifies the believer, triggering a change in their existence. On the other hand, the rite relieves them from the mul-

titude of the mundane crowd and takes them into the community of the chosen ones.43 The healing process involves the abovementioned: prayers, singing, going through the Stations of the Cross, attending Holy Masses and vigils. These activities lead to the experience of the catharsis.

The large fairs are popular attractions, but most of the visitors are non-churchgoers, who buy clothing, toys and household goods there.

Actors The number of participants depends on whether the day of the feast happens to be

on weekdays or weekend. If it is on a weekend, more people can attend, they do not 43 Mircea Eliade, Misztikus születések (Budapest: Európa, 1999), 233–234.

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have to apply for a leave of absence. Many pilgrims set out only in the morning on

September 8. They can stay in Radna only for one day, but they would not miss the one and a half our long process of going through the Stations of the Cross.

There are visitors of several ethnicities in the pilgrimage of Radna and all of them

apply for the help of the Heavenly world in their native language. Their nationalities can be apparent through the language they speak or perhaps through their

behavior. Generally, however, habits during the pilgrimage are similar. The inter-

views made with pilgrims of different nationalities show a similar emotionalism.

The difficulties stemming from multilingualism becomes problematic only at night on September 7, when all of the participants want to say their prayers and sing simultaneously in the church.

The number of pilgrims from Hungary has decreased substantially in recent years.

The mediatory language for the different ethnic groups has become Romanian instead of Hungarian. The Roman Catholic Krashovani, the Bulgarians and the Greek Catholic Romanians are accompanied by some priests, who provide the

believers with guidance to their prayers at the sacred site, promoting this way their

feeling of community. The collective passing through the Stations of the Cross, and

the large ritual ceremonies held on the hillside involve hundreds of participants, which has an effect on these larger groups concerning appearance. They represent faith, and the strength inherent in the faith more convincingly than the Hungarians, who arrive in smaller groups with 20 or 30 persons each.

The leaders of each group are generally women. Now that the pilgrims often come to Radna by bus, the group leader’s role has decreased, because the journey is much

shorter than it was decades ago. The lay clerks of the different groups sometimes keep close contact and share their prayers and songs.

There are a relatively large number of children and teenagers among the pilgrims since the school year begins only in mid-September in Romania. The children often

have their special duties, for example they carry the cross or the flags in turns. It is

important, because through this activity they feel themselves involved in the pilgrimage and may remain a dedicated member of the community after they have grown.

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Pilgrims dig in the earth for special roots called "Tears of Mary," believed to have healing power.

Photo by Erika Vass, 2005.

Accessories All the pilgrim groups have their own cross and flags which are generally carried by children, and at night they keep them in the church at the altar close to the

group. The Krashovani kiss the statue of Christ held in their priest’s hands after

they have circled the high altar. I passed through the Station of the Cross together

with the Hungarian believers from Cermei in 2005. The Hungarian pilgrims kissed

the body of Jesus Christ on the cross at the chapel on the top of the hill of Calvary after they had passed through the Stations of the Cross.44

For singing their songs they often used handwritten booklets with religious songs

collected for several years and containing the program, but they had printed hymnal books too.

During both days of my stay I saw people digging the earth on the hill of the Calvary. They searched for a special root called “Tears of Mary” or “Tears of Jesus.”45 44 Well-known examples of the healing power of the physical contact and proximity are the pilgrimages in the Middle Ages. According to the rule in those times, the goal of the pilgrimage was achieved only after the pilgrim had touched the holy shrine or the reliquary. By this the guilty were relieved of their punisments and the penance was over. (Pierre André Sigal and Isten vándorai, Középkori zarándoklatok és zarándokok (Budapest: Gondolat, 1989), 85.) Besides touching the relics, further archaic types of healing are the circling of the relics or lying on them. (Klaniczay, “A rontás- és gyógyításelbeszélések struktúrája: maleficum és csoda,” 115.)

45 These are the roots of the lesser celandine or pilewort (Ficaria verna) blossoming in spring.

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According to local belief, the roots are the hardened teardrops of Virgin Mary, who was weeping constantly during the suffering of Jesus. It is believed that the

roots have a healing power partially because they grow on a sacred site and they are

collected in a sacred time. Consuming them makes people part of the sufferings of Mother Mary and Jesus Christ. This results in recovery from illness and the expe-

rience of grace. The pieces of the roots can be cooked like tea at home when some gets sick in the family. Some of its users, like a woman from Denta, believe that recovery comes not only from the healing power of the plant, but also from God himself: “We say God cures us,” she said.

People tear off branches from the trees on the hillside and take them home, trying

to spread the grace to others who had to stay at home. The woman from Denta

mentioned above generally takes the branch taken from Radna to the representa-

tive room of her house. During the times of a thunderstorm she drops some leaves in the fire for the storm to cease soon. The green branch is the symbol of passing through the Station of the Cross and a reminder of the catharsis she experienced.

Pilgrims from Palota mix the holy water brought from Radna with the holy water taken from the local church at Epiphany. An elderly woman told me that before

going to bed, after the collective prayer of the family, she sprinkles all family members with holy water, draws a cross on their foreheads and their beds. In the morning she sprinkles the children with holy water before they go to school.

On the holy sites one feels the direct impact of God in their life. One of the characteristics of the Shrine of Radna is that people in trouble or those who want to

express their gratitude place a votive picture on the wall of the church. Some of

them are simple paintings, showing the crisis situation the donor is in; the others are simple mimeographed colored prints with a short written or typed story about

the person involved. The donation of pictures is the objectification and collectivization of the individual memory. At the same time the picture gallery ties the donor to a larger community. In 1996-97, we inventoried 1,711 pictures, but the

habit of donation is still alive.46 The oldest two paintings are from 1858. The habit 46 Barna, “Mária megsegített.”

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Gallery of votive pictures in the aisle of the church. Photo by Erika Vass, 2017.

of donating pictures to the church originally comes from the Germans, but later

other ethnic groups also made it a practice. Among the donors there are Greek Catholics as well.

The importance of the gallery of the votive pictures lies not in their aesthetic value,

but in the deep faith of the believers. The donation of a picture is a sort of sacrifice, which includes a part of the personality of the donor.47 Through these pictures

the donor becomes the part of the sacred space. The pictures are the means of strengthening the faith of the pilgrims, since they show how God helped those

who appealed to him for aid.48 During my stay in Radna, I saw people browsing the scripts under the pictures, trying to find out the personal drama behind the

donations. These people tried to draw a lesson for themselves for enduring their own sufferings.

Individual Motivations In 2018 I contacted believers of different nationality in Sânnicolau Mare and its neighborhood, with whom I made films for an exhibition, about the motivation for 47 Gerardus van der Leeuw, A vallás fenomenológiája (Budapest: Osiris, 2001), 306.

48 Van der Leeuw, A vallás fenomenológiája, 307.

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pilgrimage, the encounter with the sacred and the devotional objects treasured at

home (e.g. vase, rosary, devotional pictures). Among individual motivations, recovery from illnesses, childbirth, and penitence for the salvation of a deceased beloved

or their own sins can be found frequently. In the following part I illustrate this with a few examples.

All interviewees visited the shrine several times, and all of them emphasized its extraordinary quality, markedly differing from the everyday life. A Romanian girl

expressed it as such: “It is a very special, isolated place among the mountains and

forests, where I felt peace and tranquility. I prayed for my parents and myself and asked for health and peace from God. I bought a small icon, which helps to remember the place at home.”

Most of my informants emphasized the motherly role of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

A German lady’s words were the following: “Whatever we ask for from our Blessed

Virgin Mary, just like our own mother, she will give it. My daughter could not have

a baby for a long time, we asked for the intervention of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

After my grandchild was born I lulled her to sleep with Mary songs.” A Bulgarian woman thanked the Blessed Virgin Mary for the birth of her own child: “I did not

have a child immediately (after the wedding). I kindly asked the Blessed Virgin to have one. So she helped.” Besides, she had a Mass said for the salvation of her an-

cestors every year in Radna. About the grace acquired in the shrine she told me that

“One feels so good when arriving at home after this journey. And one never tires, never tires.” A Slovakian woman drew attention to continuity between generations: “I visited Radna with my grandmother for the first time. Now I primarily go there

because of my two children. I bought the rosary I carry in my car there. When I look at it, I always remember Radna, and I say thank you for the Blessed Virgin

Mary for being there for me, for us being healthy and for listening to our prayers.”

Several people mentioned their health or the health of their relatives. A Hungarian woman turned to the Blessed Virgin Mary of Radna because of her cancer. “Last year I was ill, but God saved me from chemotherapy. After my recovery I went to

Radna to express my thanks. When I arrived, peace and tranquility fulfilled me.

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Pilgrims climb the Calvary hill. Photo by Erika Vass, 2018.

statue of Saint Anthony. If God helps because of Saint Anthony’s prayer, then you receive good news on Tuesdays, and it worked for us.”

A Krashovani monk thanked the Blessed Virgin Mary for his vocation: “I do not buy anything in Radna. What I take in my heart is what counts. There I asked the

Blessed Virgin to help me on my way of becoming a monk, to choose me for Jesus.

In Radna we pray in many different languages, however we do it with the same

heart, the spirit is the same. The Blessed Virgin Mary is like my mother for me. We have got her as a present from God.”

From Hungary, primarily believers who visit the shrine come from settlements close to the border, traveling by buses, organized by the parish. Ethnographer Gábor Barna, born in Kunszentmárton, undertook the journey from his hometown to

Radna on foot, in memory of his ancestors: “During Pentecost of 2006 we went on a pilgrimage from Kunszentmárton to Radna on foot with my two siblings, offer-

ing up a sacrifice for the memory of our ancestors, who went there in 1726 for the JOURNAL OF GLOBAL CATHOLICISM

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first time. Everybody should try this once, so that at the end of the journey they can feel what matters in their life, as things are revalued at such times.�

As a conclusion we can state that the shrine means the same for believers, irrespective of their nationality: resulting from the encounter with the sacred, it is spiritual charging, cleansing and rebirth.

SUMMARY In my study, I emphasize the experience of the ritual drama. All the ethnic groups

of the region feel Radna to be their own sacred site. Beside differences in language and clothing, there are many similarities in the habits of the pilgrims. Evidently, all

groups have their favorite songs, but these are often identical; they just sing them in

their own native language. The sequence of the elements of the scenario is the same, and there are moving examples of the catharsis experienced by the pilgrimage in every ethnic group.

I described in detail the connection of physical and spiritual healing, and the prac-

tices tied to the shrine: Going through the Stations of the Cross eases the pains through the pilgrims’ identifying themselves with the sufferings of Jesus Christ

and Virgin Mary. During the night vigil the participants can give voice to their

pains hidden deep in their soul through their songs. By the confession they admit

their sins to God and can carry on with their everyday life with a relieved soul. The

kissing of the high altar or the cross, or touching the statue of Jesus on the cross, represents physical contact with the saint.

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VOLUME 4 ISSUE 2 | SUMMER 2020