Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 29/2. (2009)
Cultură spirituală
182 Marisia XXIX and belonging to the Pentecostal religious one, takes part to the Pentecostal gathering in the village every Sunday. "There are some Pentecostals from Canada who bought a house for us and we meet here for the Pentecostal religious service. Adults and children come together to meet us. We say prayers, we sing. That's why one goes to gather the others, to pray and sing songs. There are many people coming, more then 30. A full house. They also come from other villages, from Senereus, and Tibi comes too. He works in Mures, he is also a Gipsy. It doesn't matter whether you're a Romanian or a Gipsy, you are a human being. Adults come on Sundays and children come on Mondays. When one knows verses from the Bible one can gain toys. Andreea [Bratiana's younger sister] has got a Barbie doll and a ball. It is Tibi who gives us all these and bread too, 12 loaves of bread each and every day. The children take them all. I bring them uphill to the gipsy side [it is about a hill at the edge of the village, which is called Tigänie, where only Rhome ethnic people live]. The American one is a Pentecostal and he works with Gipsies, like us. My father works in Slovenia, harvesting strawberries; my mother wants to go to Germany. We are five brothers and sisters." The 57 year old George W., who is a German ethnic from the Evangelical confession and was born in Viisoara, says he frequented the church every Sunday till 1990, when he left the village and settled in Germany. Although he says he loves very much all the German customs he learnt during his childhood and practised later, up to his adult age, he completely changed his customs and behaviour since he moved to Germany. "I went to church on Sundays until 1990; that was a law, it was clear. I had notable offices. Now we don't keep them any longer, we watch TV, we lit a candle." Analyzing the discourse of my interlocutor I can obviously conclude that up to the 1990's the tradition played a law role, at least for his family and for the German community in the village. Some other interviews reveal the fact that the change of traditional rituals began long before the 1990's, soon after the Second World War was over, when the communist regime came into power. The 84 year old Romanian woman Saveta P. who was born in a Greek- Catholic family but then became an Orthodox, when communists prohibited Greek-Catholicism in Romania, explains the degradation of traditional holidays by their interdiction and the prohibition of any other religious rituals by the new political power, generically named with the name of the dictator Ceausescu. "Since he came...this Ceausescu [...] Since Ceausescu appeared! You must know! Since then, nobody was allowed to do anything. No, no! [...] Nothing was done any longer, my dearest. Nothing at all!"
