Commentary: Migrants and faith — needing something to hold onto

Two years ago, I visited a little German village just 25 miles from Leipzig with a pastor, a missionary who was a descendant of Germans but raised in South Africa.

He had returned to Germany and worked within asylum houses in East Germany that were filled with refugees. The houses were often tucked away in remote areas of the country, and the people living in them didn’t have much contact with the country they were hoping to call home.

I was there working on a story about Muslim-to-Christian converts from Iran going to East Germany, dubbed one of the most “godless” places in the world, where many identify as atheists.

I’ve been thinking about my visit there, as a reflection on my own immigrant upbringing, the current refugee crisis in Europe and how religion is in flux all over the world.

I met a woman in the asylum home, former Russian army barracks, in a room adorned with teddy bears, rugs and shelves of books. The space doubled as a living room and bedroom. On this particular Sunday, it functioned as a makeshift church.

It was time for Mass, and the pastor rose to preside over a group of Iranian Muslim-to-Christian converts. Among cups of fragrant Iranian tea and bowls of German sweets that I would later be offered, they received the sacrament, except for the woman I had met. She had not been officially baptized, and as such, received a blessing instead.

But she couldn’t understand why.

“My heart hurts,” she said, motioning to her chest, not understanding why she had only received a blessing.

Her voice trembled. Her eyes almost overflowed with tears. She held her fist tightly against her chest.

She had converted from Islam — an act of apostasy in Iran for which she could have been arrested, beaten or given a death sentence. She was smuggled out of the country, leaving her home and family behind before landing in East Germany.

Now, she couldn’t understand why she wasn’t worthy of receiving communion. The pastor tried to explain that she would receive it once she had been baptized, but she couldn’t comprehend why there was an invisible line between what she said she felt in her heart and a baptism ceremony that would officially sanction her faith.

She wanted so badly to grab onto that ritual, the tangible manifestation of what she felt inside, the thing that might give her the strength to keep going, lost in the middle of the German countryside, thousands of miles from anything remotely familiar.

In the weeks that I spent in Germany, meeting Iranian refugees in the basements of German churches, sharing meals with them in their asylum homes in Berlin and beyond, I met many people like this woman, who were counting on their faith to push them through the most difficult times in their life.

I thought about the little German village and the questions of faith, about what makes faith, what doesn’t and all the multiple layers in between. Then I read about a study in the American Journal of Epidemiology conducted by researchers from London and the Netherlands. They found that religion did more to sustain happiness than other types of activities.

The study analyzed 9,000 Europeans over the age of 50 and looked at working with charity, taking educational courses and participating in political and community organizations, in addition to religion.

I understand the logic in this, especially when it comes to migrants. These people often have no hope left to cling to. The idea of believing in something higher, in trying to make sense of the universe feels natural, human even. The notion of wanting something or someone to be in control, to know that we’re living in a world that has some kind of design or greater purpose, is normal and to gain peace from that even more so.

I never found out what became of the woman I met in that German village, though I think about her often and wonder if she eventually got the baptism and communion she desperately sought. I hope that in the midst of all that chaos she found some kind of path to sustained happiness.

LIANA AGHAJANIAN‘s work has appeared in LA Weekly, Paste magazine, New America Media, Eurasianet and The Atlantic.