The Romanian Churches in Italy. Paths, practices and identities

Over the past two decades, Romanian immigration to Italy has reached almost a quarter of the foreign population, so much so that it constitutes the largest Romanian diaspora in the world. In this context, Romanians of the Orthodox faith represent the second largest Christian community in our peninsula after the Italian Catholic community. In this volume, the religious dimension of this unique migratory phenomenon is examined for the first time from different perspectives, through the analysis of the Romanian Churches and Christian movements that are reshaping the Italian religious landscape. The authors focus on the paths of settlement in Italian society of the Romanian Orthodox Church, the Romanian Catholic Church of the Latin and Byzantine Rites, Pentecostal Churches and Romanian Protestant groups. The research explores both the cultural and transnational ties that historically unite Italy and Romania and the more recent transformations in the practices and identities of the Romanian Churches in the Italian context. Within this rapidly changing scenario, the Romanian Orthodox Church in particular appears to be addressing the challenges generated by migration through the development of certain innovations in its religious community.