Religion

Religion

Whether immigrants had taken religion for granted before the ocean crossing or had fought long and hard to maintain it against oppressors, most asserted their ancestral faith once they arrived in North America. The parish, the congregation or the shul became the places where the people with similar backgrounds regrouped after immigrating, the clergy often serving as intermediaries between newcomers and the sometimes frightening civil authorities. Even before a place of worship actually existed to become the focus of the revived ethnic life, the role of religion in the survival of the group often proved critical. In fact, sometimes a religious figure in a rented hall dominated by a few active, devout laymen, provided the only trace of cultural continuity, which men and women, uprooted from their homeland, desired. The church building itself, or an attached hall or school, became both the rallying point for the community and the main physical manifestation of new fellow feeling.

(Edited excerpt from the Introduction in Polyphony (Religion). Written by Robert F. Harney.)

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