Religion never meant anything to me. As a child, church was just the place my mother took me on Sundays where I was bored during the service, I looked forward to the snacks, and I dreaded Sunday school. I never fully understood why we went or what it meant to be religious. When I was older I gave in to blind faith and one day, after singing the Coronation Mass with my high school, I dropped to my knees and prayed for a sign from above to help me find my way. My lungs ached with cries and my body shook with each word of the Lord’s Prayer, but when that sign didn’t appear, when I stopped groveling and looked up, I realized that I had to make my own choices in life and live without the safety net of religion.
I never thought I would find other atheists in the Romanian community. My perception was always that all Romanian immigrants firmly, unwaveringly, believed in God. Ludwig Gall, a 56-year-old engineer, is one of the few other atheists among the Romanian community that I have found. Like me, he was brought up in a religious household and attended a Catholic Church with his family as a child, but when he was an adolescent, he says, religion “gradually faded away” from him.
“What put me firmly on the other side of religion was one key experience: reading the bible from the first page to the last,” said Gall. “It confirmed that it really wasn’t for me. [It’s a] very knotted riddle to choose what to believe as objective truth and what is made up in the Bible, [there is] no guiding authority on that, and I see only the option to believe absolutely all of it with no reservations, or push it away and be done with it.”
Like other atheists who came from religious backgrounds, Gall hid his true beliefs from his family so he would not hurt their feelings. I kept going with my mother to church and never said anything to her or my family about my decision, because I knew that they would be hurt and angry if I told them, especially since I was still a teenager.
Gall’s wife, Dana, 54, attends church each week and says even though he does not come along, he has never interfered with her going or taking their daughter, Hannah, too. Dana grew up in a town called Timisoara, west of the capital Bucharest, and came to America in 1989. She too grew up in a religious family, but resources were scarce in Romania because Communism controlled books and religious education in the country, she said.
“I could go to church, but I couldn’t buy a bible or books on religion or anything,” said Dana. “The only religious education was from my parents and grandparents, and attending church to listen to the sermon [and] the priest would explain the icons and whatever paintings were on the wall.”
Communism leaders would go after people of high status, like teachers or those in a high ranking office, according to Gall, his wife, and several other Romanians in the community. The majority of Romanians saw what was going on but lower level citizens were allowed to attend church.
“I read my first Bible when I was in college,” said Dana. “My parents instilled a very strong faith in my heart. Don’t know how, but they did, without Sunday school or books.”
When she came to America before the ’89 revolution, she continued being religious and got more involved in church life, and she raised her daughter, Hannah, in a traditional Romanian home. She says she instilled Romanian values like the importance of family, respect and religion, and she believes it has made Hannah “choosy” with her friends and more conservative in life. My mother also raised me this way, even though I was rebellious from the start. The value of family and certainly respect is a resounding note in my life, one I am passing on to my daughter as well. For me, it not about being religious though, it is about being a good person and leading a good life.
Aida Hubbard, a 38-year-old French teacher, is another atheist. She too says she read the Bible but she couldn’t take the texts literally. She, however, was not raised in a religious family, and therefor never had to hide her beliefs. She keeps an open mind when raising her children. She says they are exposed to not just one kind of religious belief, but a variety, and if they chose to be religious when they are older she will support and respect their personal choice.
“I think it’s important to be aware of religion … and it’s up to them to choose later,” said Hubbard. “Religion seems a lot more important here than in Romania. Could be just because church is a place where they gather and [it’s] an important part of being Romanian.”
She believes that religion plays a bigger role for people outside of their country because in America they are able to express themselves more freely, especially compared to Communist times, and also because church plays a very important role of bringing people together.
Historically, religion has been often used for exactly this purpose. In times of panic, famine or disease the church would reinforce Christianity in order to bring calmness to the people, according to “The West: Encounters and Transformations I” by Brian Levack, Edward Muir and Meredith Veldman.
It’s a given that Romanians are religious, she said, but here in America everyone has the right to express their beliefs; be it God or nothing at all.
