I will probably burn in the very hell they scared us with when we were kids, but I had to bring up religion in Eastern Europe, because it’s such a big, messed-up part of our culture. This is me looking back and seeing everything from a different perspective, that may not bring me many fans. Luckily I’m comfortable being hated… because you see, in a power-obsessed society, I grew up being hated – as a child, as a girl, or a woman.
The mighty church has the power, undeniably, however, seeing how they use this power, it makes one wonder if they actually believe in anything they preach. We have this saying “do what the priest says not what the priest does” – but I have to question who came up with this – could it have been the priests, caught in their blasphemous practices, trying to re-establish dominance and fearful submissiveness? Get outta here…
This power was feared by communists back in the day. They hated the church and persecuted some of the clergy, and I believe this led to the clergy taking it out even more on their congregants. I’ve seen and experienced the church since Communism until the country became part of the EU, but sadly I haven’t seen significant improvements in practices and beliefs during this whole time.
My grandma Mami was pretty religious, and being my defacto nanny for the first years of my life, she made sure to include me in her practice and also take me to church. Like most Romanians and some of the other Eastern Europeans, we are Orthodox. Not the “old” hardcore kind that celebrates Christmas in January because some cuckoos decided to stick to the Julian calendar, but the “common” lackluster Orthodox that liked to adhere to current calendars and contemporary consumerist trends.
Going to an Orthodox church is not something you can understand until you actually experience it or faint from the frankincense smoke at least once. Our churches had limited seating (no way you can ever get a seat because babushka was there at 7 am), no ventilation (because babushka gets sick from “the draft”) and opulent interior décor that would probably send an ADHD person into a downward mental spiral. Paintings on every inch inside the church, icons and murals abound, gold decorations and all kinds of cult objects that I wouldn’t even know how to call. The altars are taking it up a notch, like a reflection of the clergy’s ego, with even more useless things built in, with the added mystery of the priests’ office hidden behind them. I liked observing details, and I had my favorite paintings to check out every time I came back to a specific church, dragged in by grandma.
Aside from the soul crushing boredom of a long sermon, it was all manageable if I got something to play with, or a treat. One time I ran out of the church with a little girl I had just met, and an older man in the church yard dropped a few tiny metal marbles on the stone table for us. We started playing with them, passing them from side to side, until they all fell on the ground and we lost them. Other times we also got free food, as a lot of babushkas would bring home-made pastries to church in order to commemorate dead relatives. Remember the coliva I talked about here? That was the supreme treat, and that’s where you got to fight babushkas over it. Coliva is worth all the sins… Romanians don’t often say “the cherry on the cake” but instead they say “the candy on the coliva”…
Loving sweets and eating them on lent days was apparently a sin. I remember one of my first confessions when I was around 3 or 4 years old. Wait, what? How much could a toddler have sinned? WELL ASK THE FRIGGIN’ CHURCH.
Going on a tangent here…the pure hatred for children is still stuck in my emotional memory, hence I really believe everything the clergy of any religion has ever been accused of in regards to child abuse. There was a subliminal, but raging hatred rooted in a thirst for power I could feel in priests ever since I was a little girl. I’m not sure if boys would have had a different experience, maybe it was just little girls that were considered the abject sinners just for being born with female genitals. Ever since we were young, us girls were subtly reminded that we were dirty because of the impending period and fertile years, and then because we resemble the ultimate bitch, Eve, and we “carry the original sin”. Fucking Eeeeve. A story they made up, and then blamed us for resembling the character they invented. How much more clearly can I spell out ‘mental disorder’?
Being on your period was also a disgusting sin: tradition said that as a woman you were not allowed to walk into the church while bleeding. Also, if you were ‘not pure’ anymore you were supposed to cover up your head with a scarf or hat inside the church ‘out of respect for Jesus and God’. You see, Jesus, who otherwise saw you banging, and knows you well without your head covered, now needs you to cover up when you enter his house because he can’t handle your disgrace. Was it him, OR was it priests needing to easily spot the women who had sex, so they can ‘decide’ the right punishment?!…..Get outta here…
Rape victims were considered impure too. Truth is, as a woman you didn’t stand a chance, either as a 3 year old or a 50 year old. On the other hand, men didn’t need to cover up cause you see, they were all the victims of fucking Eve in someone’s story and now they were all absolved of sins. Maybe that’s why, ‘cause they can do no wrong, most men didn’t even go to church. Ironically, priests have a mostly female audience, the very audience they hate most.
Back to the infant confession time… Sitting in confession in Orthodox church was quite different from the private process you’d see in Catholic churches for example. As little kids, we did it together as a group. The priest would have you kneel in a circle and then would name a few sins and ask who had done what. “Did you eat meat and craved treats on lent days?” Yes sir. “Did you obey your parents at all times?” No sir. You see, a 4 year old is supposed to abstain from nutritious foods of animal origin on lent days (Wednesday and Fridays are considered lent, apart from the long lent periods before major holidays). Also you are supposed to listen and obey your parents even if they are abusive lunatics, because that’s how an obedient society is built.
As I got older, around my early teenage years, confessions became individual but not too private. The point was to get your holy communion which was only available after confession and absolution. You went to church, usually during the time leading up to major holidays, and waited in a long-ass line. The priest would sit on a chair somewhere close to the altar. Once your turn came, you’d kneel before him and he would put his robe over your head, so that at this point you’d see his pants and shoes. Slightly disturbing…. the shoes, not being under the priest’ s robe. Then came the questions: “Have you been obeying your parents? Have you used curse words? Have you smoked? Have you had sex? Have you been fasting? Have you had sex?”. Yeah some questions got asked twice – to get you, you little devil you. Luckily I hadn’t had sex yet, so I don’t know what followup questions the guy would have had for me, but one time when I was about 13 I did get a priest so offended that I had smoked and talked back to my parents, that he threw a power tantrum: “Tz, tz” he shook his head. “Should I give you the holy communion? Not sure you deserve it”. In my stupid mind, I thought I was so bad, I actually felt fear, like I can’t get absolution from my sins. This is how it’s done my friends, if you ever wondered how entire populations are subjugated into obedience. Spoiler alert, he gave me some penance prayers and let me go. I guess he felt like God for a bit.
I know it all sounds so serious. But if you were to walk around on a normal day, Romanians are anything but god fearing. Priests included! I mean, the most Orthodox thing you’ll see is probably people making the sign of the cross then when they pass by a church. Kinda funny, in retrospect, thinking how almost an entire tram of people would make the cross sign as we passed by a church on our way to work every day.
Generally Orthodoxy is seen as more permissive than Catholicism. I never got it, since our lent meant following a strict vegan diet, while theirs was mostly vegetarian. I guess we were not as hounded to go to church every Sunday like Catholics were. I liked the lent practice, as it’s a great exercise and if done well, a healthy break for your body. I also like how the culture of “lent” has transformed our culinary landscape, to the point where even KFC will offer vegan options. Romanian vegan food is actually pretty neat.
Things might have changed a little nowadays, but the church’s power still suppresses the government’s in many aspects. I know a lot of women are welcome to many churches as they are, and not seen as inferior humans, but not all eastern countries have been making progress like this. There has also been an increased call to depoliticize the churches and that fell on deaf ears for the most part. I know there are priests now that do a great job at changing the output from individual penance to individual counseling and community building, and I can’t be happier with that. But when I hear about cases where a priest refuses to perform a funeral because the family doesn’t have enough money to pay him for reading from a book beside a coffin, that boils my blood. Don’t even get me started on paying taxes…Could this be a result of their communist persecution, I don’t know. Not many people have the courage to fight back or speak up, because the narrative of “talking badly about the priests” was also included on the list of ultimate sins. How convenient…
I’m happy to have the distant perspective now and understand what was wrong with the old picture. Somehow, with the religious indoctrination, we actually lost spirituality instead of enriching it. I think there’s so much more to spirituality and these traditional religions literally limited our expansion through fear.
This heretic post was brought to you by mental clarity and the inability to believe in fairy tales, but with a genuine desire to see a better world.
It's Okay, I'm Eastern European. 