This sociological interview-based study explores the religious experiences of Orthodox Romanians living in one particular city in the Czech Republic. Drawing on narrative interviews, the article investigates the roles and meanings of religion in post-migration everyday life. We distinguish two rather opposing forms of religious mobilization in the lives of Romanian migrants in Czech society. The first form emphasizes religion as a means of maintaining transnational ties and networks; the second stresses the liberation from religion and the (not only religious) structures of Romanian society through, after, and because of migration. While the first includes various forms of practising Romanian orthodoxy, the latter entails the secularization of migrants and their emphasis on not belonging to a transnational social field. The aim of this article is to illuminate how Romanian migrants in the Czech Republic make sense of religious practices and how they understand these practices in the context of their migration experience. The findings are carefully interpreted within the context of Czech society. © 2018 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Migration Transnationalism Religion religious identity orthodoxy

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