Religion, Immigration, and the Role of Context: the Impact of Immigration on Religiosity in the Republic of Cyprus

Journal of journal of religion in europe 11 (2018) 321-347 Religion in Europe brill.com/jre

Religion, Immigration, and the Role of Context: The Impact of Immigration on Religiosity in the Republic of Cyprus

Theodoros Kouros Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Cyprus [email protected]

Yiannis Papadakis Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Cyprus [email protected]

Abstract

This article examines the impact of immigration on the religiosity of four immigrant groups in the Republic of Cyprus. It attempts to shed light on the various factors that impact the religiosity of immigrants in Cyprus and on whether migration has a theologizing or alienating effect, i.e., whether it affects the religiosity of immigrants positively or negatively. It concludes that immigrants’ religious identities are being negotiated and transformed largely by their interplay with the local population, thus moving the focus beyond the theologizing/alienating dichotomy and beyond the religion as a bridge or barrier debate.

Keywords religion – immigration – Cyprus – immigrant religiosity – theologizing hypothesis – bridge – barrier

1 Introduction

I had no knowledge. I knew that God didn’t exist. That is what they told us. Then I was living […] until I came to Cyprus and saw what you had.

322 Kouros and Papadakis

This quote was provided to us during an interview with R., a forty-seven-year- old Russian woman, who referred to her emigration to the Republic of Cyprus as a revelation that convinced her to switch from atheism to Orthodox Chris- tianity. Had she been from Syria or Sri Lanka, would she feel the same about “what you have here”? Most likely not, as Russian immigrants in Cyprus are predominantly of Christian Orthodox origin, and the Republic of Cyprus is a predominantly Christian Orthodox society. The issue of religiosity of social groups is complex, as ‘religiosity’ can refer both to a practice and a spiritual state. However, one thing that can be done is to measure certain dimensions of religiosity and, then, to explain the dif- ferences between different religious groups. This article explores the impact of immigration on the religiosity of various immigrant groups in the Repub- lic of Cyprus (RoC) with a comparative focus on immigrants from Syria, Rus- sia, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka. It is the first attempt to explore this issue in the context of Cyprus, an area where very limited research exists on issues of migration, and it is a response to calls by other scholars for more context- specific research, empirical data from outside the us and Western Europe, and comparative cross-religious research.1 By employing data that was derived by using both quantitative and qualitative methods, it discusses the strengths and weaknesses of various theoretical approaches in the light of this empirical material. As we show, the evaluation of a number of different variables and the employment of a comparative framework (with different migrant groups) can lead to more finely-tuned understandings. The paper focuses on three main areas: (1) on the socio-economic factors that have an impact on the religiosity of immigrants in Cyprus; (2) on the interplay between religious identities of both immigrants and locals and the subsequent influence on religiosity; and (3) on whether migration is theologizing or alienating, i.e., whether it has a positive impact on religiosity or a negative one. The paper proposes a view that goes beyond this dichotomy by taking into due consideration various variables related to origin, socioeconomic, ethnic, and religious contexts.

1.1 “Third Country Nationals” (tcns) in the Republic of Cyprus: The Research Population2 In recent years, immigration has increased rapidly in the RoC. Since 1974, Cyprus, an island republic set up in 1960, was firmly divided with the southern

1 For the call for more context-specific research, see Phillip Connor, “International Migration and Religious Participation: The Mediating Impact of Individual and Contextual Factors,” Sociological Forum 24/4 (2009), 779–803. For the latter, see Martha Th. Frederiks, “Religion, Migration and Identity,” Mission Studies 32/2 (2015), 181–202, at 197–198. 2 The term ‘tcn’ is used by eu institutions to refer to migrants that come from non-eu states.

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Religion, Immigration, and the Role of Context 323 part controlled by the (Greek-Cypriot run) Republic of Cyprus and the northern part by the (internationally not recognized and Turkish-Cypriot admin- istered) Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The research presented here refers to the southern (Greek Cypriot) part of Cyprus under the control of the Republic of Cyprus, which became an eu member in 2004. In 2001, according to the official government census, the total number of immigrants was 64,810 or 9.4% of the total population. According to the same census, there were 4,952 Russians residing in the country, 3,245 Filipinos, 4,939 Sri Lankans, and 1,436 Syrians. Ten years later, according to the latest census in 2011, the total of immigrants in the RoC amounted to 107,383 of whom 8,164 were Russians, 9,413 Filipinos, 7,269 Sri Lankans, and 3,054 Syrians. Within a decade, the number of migrants living in the RoC almost doubled, and there was a notable growth of the population of Russians, Filipinos, Sri Lankans, and Syrians. However, the number of migrants in the RoC is probably higher given that the official census does not include undocumented immigrants. The reason these particular four immigrant groups were chosen was two- fold. For one, they are they are amongst the most populous immigrant groups in the RoC. The second reason was to provide the most productive comparison in light of our central concern, namely the implications of the interplay between local and immigrant religious identities. Given the religion of the majority of citizens of the RoC, namely Orthodox Christianity, but also the fact that religion is a crucial component of the Greek Cypriot national identity, one predominantly Orthodox community (Russians) was thus chosen.3 Moreover, the Russian community is the second most numerous immigrant community of tcns in Cyprus and the largest predominantly Orthodox Christian one (8,164, according to the 2011 census).4 Filipinos, the largest community of tcns

3 Marios Vryonides, “Θρησκευτικότητα και Θρησκοληψία: Mια Kριτική Aνάγνωση των Aποτελεσμάτων της Eυρωπαϊκής Kοινωνικής Έρευνας” [Religiosity and Bigotry: A Critical Reading of the Results of the European Social Survey], in: Kostas Gouliamos & Marios Vry- onides (eds.), Όψεις Kυπριακής Kοινωνίας: Διαπιστώσεις Eυρωπαϊκής Kοινωνικής Έρευνας [Aspects of the Cypriot Society: Insights from the European Social Survey] (Nicosia: En Tipis, 2010), 121–146; Marios Sarris, “Organisation and Divisions in the Orthodox Church in Cyprus: Post- independence Events and Changes in Context,” Cyprus Review 22/2 (2010), 189–204. 4 Even though the groups are presented with reference to nationality, religion is the primary focus of the research. Hence, non-Buddhist Sri-Lankans, Christian Syrians, Catholic or athe- ist Russians, and non-Catholic Filipinos were dropped from the dataset. The reference in nationality is perceived as important by the authors, as it allows us to draw conclusions that relate to social capital accumulation, separate ‘national’ religious communities, and so forth. However, we do not conflate nationality with religion. Nor do we conceptualize ethnic, national, or religious communities as undifferentiated blocs. This choice was made in order to facilitate sampling and comparability.

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324 Kouros and Papadakis in Cyprus (9,413), who are predominantly Catholics, were chosen because they practice a religion that is common in countries of Western and Central Europe and, therefore, is a religion more culturally and historically familiar to Greek Cypriots. Another community was chosen because it is the largest predominantly Buddhist one (Sri Lankans, 7,269), and this community practices a religion that did not exist in the RoC until recently, as its presence there coincides with immigration. Finally the largest predominantly Muslim community was selected (Syrians, 3,054) because its members practice a religion that historically, and especially more recently, represents the constitutive ‘Other’ of the West.5 Moreover this choice was made because Islam is a religion that was present in the RoC until 1974, yet practiced by Turkish Cypriots and, more so, by Turks, the constitutive ‘Other’ of Greek Cypriots.6 The four communities that were selected are amongst the five largest third country nationals’ communities in the RoC, i.e., nationals of countries that are not eu citizens.7 According to Corina Demetriou and Nicos Trimikliniotis, the RoC was an emigrant rather than an immigrant society until the early 1990s, when it was required to fill gaps in unskilled labor demand caused by rapid, if not also rabid, economic development.8 The rationale of the legal and institutional framework only per- mitted immigration that was temporary and limited to specific sectors and employers, “a kind of Gastarbeiter model.” Even though studies have shown that they “are believed to have contributed up to 54% of the growth since they first arrived in the RoC,” the institutional framework that regulates their employment is highly restrictive. The RoC is “structurally producing and reproducing a framework of precariousness and exclusion.”9 Most of the tcns in the RoC are of Southeast and East Asian origin (mainly Filipinos, Sri-Lankans, and Vietnamese), and the majority work as housekeepers and unskilled workers. However, there are some exceptions to this tendency. Russian immigrants are also tcns but enjoy a different social and economic

5 Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books, 2003). 6 Yiannis Papadakis, Echoes from the Dead Zone: Across the Cyprus Divide (London: i.b. Tauris, 2005). 7 Given that no immigrant group of eu Nationals were predominantly Muslims or Buddhists, and there are no major predominantly Orthodox groups, we chose to only compare groups of tcns in order to avoid issues of incomparability, which would arise from different migration status. 8 Corina Demetriou & Nicos Trimikliniotis, Labour Integration of Migrant Workers in Cyprus: A Critical Appraisal Precarious Migrant Labour across Europe (Ljubljana: Mirovni Institut, 2011), 73–96. 9 Ibid., 9.

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Religion, Immigration, and the Role of Context 325 standing. As part of the authorities’ effort to attract foreign investments, the RoC has set up a different procedure for certain applicants, such as foreign companies that employ workers from third countries.

2 Theoretical Considerations: Bridges and Barriers, Theologizing versus Alienating

Before proceeding to matters of religion and its relationship with migration, some analytical concepts, used frequently in this paper, should be defined. Firstly, ‘integration’ “is here understood as an open-ended process comprising cognitive, structural, social, and identificational dimensions; ‘assimilation’ is regarded as one among several possible integration outcomes.”10 Second, ‘religious assimilation’ is defined as the adoption of the host society’s religious forms or level of participation or as the process of conversion of immigrants to the predominant religion of the host population. Phillip Connor differen- tiated between religious form assimilation (e.g., frequency of religious participation) and content assimilation (i.e., switching to a different religious

10 Phillip Connor & Matthias Koenig, “Bridges and Barriers: Religion and Immigrant Occupational Attainment across Integration Contexts,” International Migration Review 47/1 (2013), 3–38, at 4. It should be noted that even though the concept of ‘social integration’ is omnipresent in the literature on migration issues, it is often not clearly defined. The concept can become problematic, as there is a tendency to generalize when referring to integration issues. As Michael Eve notes: “Integration is mostly conceived in terms of collective blocs. Thus, there is controversy over whether ‘young Maghrébins’ are ‘inte- grated’ into ‘French society,’ ‘Asians’ in ‘British society,’ the terms being an ‘ethnic group’ on the one hand and ‘society’ or ‘the nation’ on the other.” See Michael Eve, “Integrating via Networks: Foreigners and Others,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 33/7 (2010), 1231–1248, at 1231–1232. Even though it is widely recognized that it is unrealistic to think of either national cultures or national societies as undifferentiated blocs, much reasoning continues to pose the question in these ethnic and national terms and to use empirical evidence at this level of aggregation. However, in order to tackle such hazards, we adopted a mixed methodology, which combines analyses of the micro and macro level. Moreover, we took seriously into account Thomas Hylland Eriksen’s suggestions, in that we neither ignored nor took “for granted the existence of ethnic/ religious communities and their variable relevance for people who belong to them (or refuse to do so),” and we incorporated “both majorities and minorities in the research design.” In other words, we took seriously into consideration the historical, socio-cultural, and political context. See Thomas Hylland Eriksen, “Complexity in Social and Cultural Integration: Some Analytical Dimensions,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30/6 (2007), 1055–1069, at 1067).

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326 Kouros and Papadakis group).11 In this paper, in most cases we refer to religious form assimilation, i.e., the tendency of the religious habits of immigrants to converge with those of the locals, unless otherwise indicated. In the past decade, an interesting debate has received most of the attention of social scientists working on the relationship between religion and immigration. It focuses on the role of religion in the processes of social integration and religious assimilation of migration flows in host societies. As discussed by Nancy Foner and Richard Alba and Connor and Matthias Koenig, this debate can be summarized as follows:

• On the one hand, theories that view the religion of immigrants as a ‘bridge’ toward inclusion and upward social mobility; • On the other, theories that emphasize the limits, symbolic borders, and barriers produced by religious diversity that contribute negatively to inclusion, through creating segregated communities.12

Even though the article does not fully enter this debate, it contributes to it by highlighting those factors that should be taken into consideration when examining the role of religion in immigrant integration, and it does so by entering the theologizing/alienating debate and, more specifically, by placing empha- sis on the social and cultural specifics of both the society of origin and the host society. The main contribution of this paper, though, relates more closely to the latter debate on the religion and immigration relationship, which is discussed thoroughly by Douglas S. Massey and Monica Espinoza Higgins. According to them, various case studies undertaken in the 1990s, generally confirmed “that immigration was indeed a ‘theologizing experience.’”13 The term

11 Phillip Connor, “Do Immigrants Religiously Assimilate? Contextualizing Immigrant Reli- gious Participation in Western Europe, the United States and Canada.” Annual Meeting of Population Association of America (2009). http://paa2009.princeton.edu/papers/90505 (accessed 23 July 2016). 12 See Nancy Foner & Richard Alba, “Immigrant Religion in the u.s. and Western Europe: Bridge or Barrier to Inclusion?,” International Migration Review 42/2 (2008), 360–392; Connor & Koenig, “Bridges,” 3–5. On bridge theories, see also Teresa Garcia-Muñoz & Shoshana Neuman, “Is Religiosity of Immigrants a Bridge or a Buffer in the Process of Integration? A Comparative Study of Europe and the United States,” iza Discussion Paper No. 6384 (Bonn, 2012). On border theories, see also Sarah Carol, Marc Helbling, & Ines Michalowski, “A Struggle over Religious Rights? How Muslim Immigrants and Christian Natives View the Accommodation of Religion in Six European Countries,” Social Forces 94/2 (2015), 647–671. 13 Douglas S. Massey & Monica Espinoza Higgins, “The Effect of Immigration on Religious Belief and Practice: A Theologizing or Alienating Experience?,” Social Science Research

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Religion, Immigration, and the Role of Context 327

‘theologizing’ refers to the increase of religiosity after immigration and was introduced by Timothy L. Smith, who argued that when migrants attempt to cope with the experiences of loss, separation, and disorientation, faith provides them with a vocabulary to express these experiences, while religious communities offer structure, support, and intimacy.14 Since the time Smith coined the term, it has very often been used by scholars who study the connection between migration and religion. ‘Alienation’ refers to the opposite process, where religiosity decreases as a result of religious assimilation, better socio-economic standing, higher educational level, etc. Moreover, theories of religion as a bridge, stress the role of religious col- lectivities such as parishes, associations, etc. The activities in such organizations and institutions facilitate migrants in acquiring social and civic skills, financial and professional opportunities, and to thus generate social capital, as proposed by Subramanian Karthick Ramakrishnan and Celia Viramontes.15 At the same time, by participating in such communities, one might say that religiosity increases, since most are of religious character. Apart from the obvious

40/5 (2011), 1371–1389, at 1372. On the 1990s case studies, see Stephen R. Warner & Judith G. Wittner (eds.), Gatherings in the Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immi- gration (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998); Janet Saltzman Chafetz & Helen Rose Ebaugh (eds.), Religion and the New Immigrants: Continuities and Adaptations in Im- migrant Congregations (Walnut Creek: Alta Mira Press, 2000); Timothy L. Smith, “Religion and Ethnicity in America,” American Historical Review 83/5 (1978), 1155–1185. 14 Smith, “Religion.” 15 Subramanian Karthick Ramakrishnan & Celia Viramontes, Civic Inequalities, Immigrant Volunteerism and Community Organizations in California (San Francisco: Public Policy In- stitute of California, 2006). Social capital could be defined as “the emergent properties of social networks—such as trust and reciprocity—that provide the social control and solidarity that facilitate ‘coordinated actions’ and the pursuit of ‘shared objectives.’” Such networks “influence migration decisions, [and] they are also related to migratory outcomes such as settlement patterns, assimilation, and transnational links.” See Yao Lu, Danching Ruan, & Gina Lai, “Social Capital and Economic Integration of Migrants in Urban China,” Social Networks 35/3 (2013), 357–369, at 369. Yet, the concept of ‘ethnicity as social capital’ has been criticized because this view often leaves power relations within groups aside, by stressing on “the positive sides of strong networks” and by idealizing “the coopera- tive nature of some ethnic groups.” Additionally, studies of ethnicity and social capital “by privileging groups’ norms and values (social capital) in explaining adaptation, they risk overshadowing the role of receiving societies in shaping these processes.” See Venetia Evergeti & Elisabetta Zontini, “Introduction: Some Critical Reflections on Social Capital, Migration and Transnational Families,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 29/6 (2006), 1025–1039, at 1029–1030. These issues can be avoided by taking into consideration context-specific factors, such as the role of locals in the process of immigrant integration, racism, discrimination, etc.

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328 Kouros and Papadakis fulfilment of religious needs, through attending and participating in religious activities and organizations, migrants may gain various material and symbolic goods, enhancing social capital through social networks, business opportunities, accumulated knowledge, and experience regarding bureaucratic pro- cedures in the host country.16 Sometimes, this is being achieved through an instrumental use of religion, as Jacqueline Hagan and Helen Rose Ebaugh have argued.17 In general, those views support the theologizing hypothesis, i.e., the increase of religiosity. In contrast, Robert Wuthnow and Kevin Christiano have argued that migration as an inherently disruptive event can lead to reduced participation after immigrating to another country.18 This view supports the alienation hypothesis, that is, the view that religiosity declines after immigration. It should be noted here that even though most of the studies related to these debates, namely bridge/barrier and theologizing/alienating, do not focus on the local, social, and cultural specifics of both the origin and the host society, a large portion of social scientists hold that the status of being an immigrant is merely one of the factors impacting religiosity. Other factors include age, gender, marital and family status, education, and employment. Most impor- tantly, Connor held that religious participation is also likely to be affected by the context in the place of emigration and, more particularly, factors such as the existence and amount of people who share the same religion in the destination society and the diversity of local religious beliefs.19 This paper attempts to further extend Connor’s approach, by including more contextual factors in our analytical toolbox and by further supporting this approach with empirical data from the RoC. And this endeavor is an important contribution to the relevant discussion, since as Martha Th. Frederiks noted: “Current theory is to a large extent based on qualitative research conducted in the United States and to a lesser extent in Western Europe. A cross-check is required in order to verify whether these theories can be extrapolated to other contexts.” More- over, according to the same author, we need more empirical studies in order to

16 Anna Maria Mayda, “International Migration: A Panel Data Analysis of the Determinants of Bilateral Flows,” Journal of Population Economics 23/4 (2010), 1249–1274; Chafetz & Ebaugh, Religion; Garcia-Muñoz & Neuman, “Is Religiosity.” 17 Jacqueline Hagan & Helen Rose Ebaugh, “Calling upon the Sacred: Migrants’ Use of Reli- gion in the Migration Process,” International Migration Review 37/4 (2003), 1145–1162. 18 Robert Wuthnow & & Kevin Christiano, “The Effects of Residential Migration on Church Attendance in the United States,” in: Robert Wuthnow (ed.), The Religious Dimension: New Directions in Quantitative Research (New York: Academic Press, 1979), 257–276. 19 Connor, “International.”

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Religion, Immigration, and the Role of Context 329

explain “why some religious beliefs and practices change, whilst others seem to endure.”20

3 Methodology

This research employs a combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques, known as triangulation. In this case, the sample of the quantitative part of the survey was N=1023, while the qualitative part initially included thirty-nine interviews, of which nine were dropped due to language difficulties and the remaining thirty were analyzed. The survey covered all provinces and territories under the control of the RoC and was conducted in the period between February and June 2014. Access to the population was quite difficult, since most immigrants in the RoC use prepaid mobile phones and are not reg- istered in phone books. Consequently, the possibility of telephone interviews was excluded and face to face interviews were conducted both in the quantitative and the qualitative parts of the survey. The qualitative part of the research included semi-structured interviews both with members of religious communities and with representatives of official bodies, such as priests, diplomats, members of associations, etc. The participants were chosen through purposive sampling. The length of the interviews varied, mainly due to language difficulties. The setting of the qualitative interviews was, in most cases, the home of the informants or a café. A public place such as a café was chosen as an interview site mostly in cases of immigrants who stayed at their employers’ homes, and the presence of their employer in the house could not be avoided. As regards the sampling techniques of the quantitative survey, non- probability quota sampling was used since a sampling frame was not available and the available time for the implementation of the research was limited. The sub-groups that were created were based on nationality (approx. 250 participants of each of the four communities were recruited). More specifically, we took into account the strong gender dimension of migration in the RoC, and the sample was representative of the total population of each community in terms of gender (see Table 1). The respondents were recruited mostly in places where members of each community gather in the major cities of the RoC, such as parks, community events, shops that sell products from the country of origin of each group, etc. Religious places were avoided in most cases, as

20 Frederiks, “Religion.”

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330 Kouros and Papadakis

Table 1 Sample Distribution by Gender

Nationality Frequency Percent

Filipino Valid Male 16 6.3 Female 238 93.7 Total 254 100.0 Sri Lankan Valid Male 55 20.6 Female 212 79.4 Total 267 100.0 Syrian Valid Male 195 77.4 Female 57 22.6 Total 252 100.0 Russian Valid Male 86 34.4 Female 164 65.6 Total 250 100.0 participants who would be recruited in such places would be more religious than others and the sample would subsequently become biased. Most scales and questions used in the questionnaire were adapted from relevant reports and questionnaires of the ess (European Social Survey, Rounds 2002–2010) and issp (International Social Survey Program, Module: Religion).21 The validity of the questionnaire was further enhanced through a pilot study (N=40, ten for each community). The main variables of the study were ethnicity, religion, duration of stay, and religiosity. Religiosity can become measurable by measuring certain dimensions. Such dimensions are: the ideological, the ritual, the degree of knowledge on the doctrine or history of religion, and the community dimension. The latter is associated closely with the concept of social capital.22 We measured religiosity by using items regarding participation in religious activities (ritual dimension), items about subjective religiosity (ideological dimension), items on prayer frequency, and items relating to the social circle of participants (community dimension). The degree of knowledge on the doctrine or history of religion was excluded, as it would require different questions for each group, which would render the sample incomparable.

21 Jaak Billiet, “Questions about National, Subnational and Ethnic Identity,” in: ess Question- naire Development Report (London: City University London, 2001), 339–383. 22 Ibid.

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Religion, Immigration, and the Role of Context 331

4 Research Results a Religiosity We attempted to look at specific indicators and assumptions in order to answer the questions raised in the introduction. First of all, the degree of religiosity in the sample on a descriptive level had to be assessed. Overall, as shown in Table 2, it appears that Catholic Filipinos and Buddhist Sri Lankans are more religious than the other two groups, at least in terms of subjective religiosity. This result also dovetails with the results concerning other dimensions of religiosity. For instance, in response to the question “Do you consider your- selves as having a religion or faith?,” 95% of Filipinos and 94% of Sri Lankans answered positively, while the respective percentages for Syrians and Rus- sians were 82% and 86%. In relation to participation in religious activities, we compared those participating at least weekly with everyone else as Frank van Tubergen and Jorunn I. Sindradóttir have done, by recoding the relevant variable.23 46% of Filipinos, 22.5% of Sri Lankans, 20.3% of Syrians and 4.8% of Russians participate weekly. However, Sri Lankans are not considered in relation to this variable, as in Buddhism, major religious activities are not weekly, but monthly, and are associated with the moon cycle. Increased religiosity on a subjective level for those two groups, was confirmed in the qualitative part of the survey as well, since most of the participants from the Philippines and Sri Lanka claimed to be very religious, both in a subjective manner as well as with regards to the level of participation in religious activities. Additionally, as indicated, 33% and 21% respectively of Filipinos and Sri Lank- ans were members of religious associations, which demonstrates the weighty significance of religion in their social organization. Participation in organized

Table 2 Subjective Religiosity (Means)

Nationality N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation

Filipino Religiosity 225 .00 10.00 6.3111 2.21422 Sri Lankan Religiosity 254 .00 10.00 9.0433 2.09132 Syrian Religiosity 245 .00 10.00 5.6082 2.64295 Russian Religiosity 220 .00 10.00 5.1409 2.55231

23 Frank van Tubergen & Jorunn I. Sindradóttir, “The Religiosity of Immigrants in Europe: A Cross-National Study,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 50/2 (2011), 272–288.

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332 Kouros and Papadakis groups is an important factor associated with the legal and identity aspects of social integration. Usually organizations and associations of immigrants are considered as social mechanisms that play the role of mediator between local and state official bodies with the immigrant community they represent.24 The fact that in this case the organizations and associations of these two groups are religious demonstrates the significance of religion for these two communities and religion’s relationship with their social organization. b Socio-Economic Factors and Religiosity Religion is always in dynamic interplay with many factors and is constantly being transformed. The factors that appear to influence religiosity are gender, age, level of education, and socio-economic status.25 And clearly the religious environments of both the country of origin and the host country also had to be taken into consideration.26 It was evident that Russians who came from a country where Orthodox Christianity was the prevailing religion were in an advantageous position to religiously adapt in the Greek Cypriot society.27 As mentioned earlier, Filipinos and Sri Lankans were the most religious of the four groups, according to the indicators for religiosity examined. Accord- ing to the ‘insecurity theory,’ a popular theory in the sociology of religion, in- securities caused by the socio-economic and emotional factors influence and drive the demand for religion.28 This should be most evident in vulnerable and precarious immigrant groups such as Filipinos, Sri Lankans, and Syrians. As our results showed, Filipinos and Sri Lankans had lower income levels (and thus were in a more insecure position) than the other two groups. Also, they have usually come to the RoC with fixed term contracts, and most of them reside in the homes of their employers, away from their families. Indicatively, the average monthly income of Filipinos was merely 341 euros, for Sri Lankans 357, while for Syrians and Russians it was 936 and 1256 euros respectively. Also, in relation to occupation, most Filipinos and Sri Lankans were employed as domestic workers, with rates of 63.5% and 75.5% respectively, most Syrians were workers or employees, and the majority of Russians were employees,

24 João Sardinha, Immigrant Associations, Integration and Identity (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009). 25 Pippa Norris & Ronald Inglehart, Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Stijn Ruiter & Frank van Tubergen, “Re- ligious Attendance in Cross-National Perspective: A Multilevel Analysis of 60 Countries,” American Journal of Sociology 115/3 (2009), 863–895. 26 Connor, “International.” 27 Nicos Trimikliniotis & Corina Demetriou, “Cyprus,” in: Anna Triandafyllidou & Ruby Gro- pas (eds.), European Immigration: A Sourcebook (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014), 45–58. 28 Norris & Inglehart, Sacred.

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Religion, Immigration, and the Role of Context 333 entrepreneurs, and managers. Finally, 81% of Filipinos and 65% of Sri Lank- ans lived in the homes of their employers, in contrast to 51% of Russians who said that their home was their own property (whether with or without a loan). From the survey results, it emerged that religiosity seems to be influenced by socio-economic status, which partially confirms the theory of insecurity and the assumption that those participants who had a lower income and lower socio-economic status tended to be more religious (see Table 3). Even though this can be confirmed for the research sample, it should be made clear that there are also other factors that may influence this result, such

Table 3 Correlations Between Subjective Religiosity and Income, Subjective Religiosity and Education

Correlations

Subjective Religiosity Income

Subjective Pearson Correlation 1 –.312** Religiosity Sig. (2-tailed) .000 N 944 577 Income Pearson Correlation –.312** 1 Sig. (2-tailed) .000 N 577 610

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Correlations

Subjective Religiosity Education

Subjective Pearson Correlation 1 –.244** Religiosity Sig. (2-tailed) .000 N 944 927 Education Pearson Correlation –.244** 1 Sig. (2-tailed) .000 N 927 1002

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

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334 Kouros and Papadakis as gender. Most participants from the Philippines and Sri Lanka were women, and gender is considered an important factor for religiosity, as women tend to be more religious than men.29 In summary, it appears that religion could indeed act as ‘a balm for the soul’ for social groups that are more vulnerable. As A., a thirty-three-year-old Sri-Lankan woman put it:

Q. Do you go more often to the church since you moved in [sic] Cyprus? A. Yes. You know why? The reason here is I am alone. I feel more lonely [sic], you know. Before my husband come [sic] here, I don’t [sic] have many friends, you know I didn’t know anybody, I didn’t know the language, so, this is [sic] only language I can talk with God.

The proponents of the theory of the scientific worldview argue that the higher the level of education in a society or a social group, the lower the religiosity of its members.30 This has to do with the (admittedly questionable) view that in a society where science is developed, people become more skeptical of religious claims. This theory is confirmed from the research results, since there was a statistically significant negative correlation between religiosity and educational level. c Religious Identities in Interplay: The Importance of Context In this section, the ways in which religious identities of both immigrants and locals influence the processes of social integration are examined. Additionally, since religious assimilation was observed in many cases, this will be assessed. First and foremost, we should assess the religiosity of immigrants vis-à-vis the religiosity of the local population. According to data available from the ess database (ess 2010), the degree of religiosity of Greek Cypriots and that of the research sample is very close.31 Although there is not much difference, immigrants as a whole were more religious than Greek Cypriots regarding the ritual dimension. At the same time, Greek Cypriots were more religious in terms of subjective religiosity. As also shown in Table 4, there is a large discrepancy between the information we already have about the religiosity of immigrants in

29 van Tubergen & Sindradóttir, “The Religiosity.” 30 See Ruiter & van Tubergen “Religious”; Ariana Need & Nan Dirk De Graaf, “The Chang- ing Electorate of the Confessional Parties: Effects of Socialization and Intragenerational Religious Mobility in the 1956–1994 Elections,” Netherlands Journal of Social Sciences 32/1 (1996), 51–70. 31 See van Tubergen & Sindradóttir, “The Religiosity,” 281; Vryonides, “Θρησκευτικότητα.”

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Religion, Immigration, and the Role of Context 335

the RoC through the ess (first row) and data from this survey (second row).32 This is probably a result of the very small number of the sample of existing data about the religiosity of immigrants in the RoC (N=72), although the sample of Cypriots in the same database is efficient (N=1,091). Yet, in the ess data, the sample of immigrants was random, and it was not selected on the basis of nationality or other criteria (see Table 4). Religiosity of immigrants was also expected to be correlated with the length of stay in the RoC due to the argument that immigrants’ religious practices tend to converge towards those of the host population and deviate from those of their country of origin as length of stay increases.33 As shown in Table 5, there was a statistically significant negative correlation between the duration of stay and subjective religiosity, although not very strong, which indicates that religiosity decreased as duration of stay in the RoC increased. This does not appear to be due to other factors, such as difficulty of access to places of worship or lack of free time, largely because the correlation was based on subjective religiosity rather than the ritual dimension. It is also noteworthy that at least the ritual dimensions of religiosity, namely the comparison between the frequency of attending religious activities during the period of the survey and before immigration to the RoC, increased in the case of Russians in contrast with the other three groups. This, as opposed to subjective religiosity, might be a result of other factors, such as working conditions, limited access to places of worship, and very limited leisure time for the remaining three groups of immigrants. Nevertheless, the

Table 4 Religiosity of Cypriots and Immigrants in the RoC

Religious Praying Daily (%) Subjective N Attendance at Religiosity (Mean) Least Weekly (%)

Country Immigrants Locals Immigrants Locals Immigrants Locals Immigrants Locals ess 2010 16.67 27.77 29.17 38.86 6.15 6.66 72 1,091 Research 32.6 – 42.3 – 6.59 – 1,023 – Results

32 For the source of the ess data, see van Tubergen & Sindradóttir, “The Religiosity,” 281. 33 Frank van Tubergen, “Religious Affiliation and Participation among Immigrants in a Secu- lar Society: A Study of Immigrants in the Netherlands,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 33/5 (2007), 747–765.

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336 Kouros and Papadakis

Table 5 Correlation Between Length of Stay in the RoC and Subjective Religiosity

Correlations

Length of Stay in Subjective the RoC (yrs) Religiosity Length of Stay in the Pearson Correlation 1 –.208** RoC (yrs) Sig. (2-tailed) ,000 N 1010 933 Subjective Religiosity Pearson Correlation –.208** 1 Sig. (2-tailed) .000 N 933 944

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)

70%

60%

50%

40% participation present time

30% participation before migrating

20%

10%

0% Russians Filipinos Sri Lankans Syrians Figure 1 Participation in Religious Activities Before and After Migration fact that Greek Cypriots and Russians are predominantly Orthodox Christians facilitated this increase, as indicated by the qualitative data presented later. Some other results concerning the ritual dimension of religion are also interesting. Filipinos seemed to participate in religious activities more often than Syrians and Russians. The most interesting aspect, however, regarding the ritual dimension is related to the reasons why the participants attended religious

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Religion, Immigration, and the Role of Context 337 activities. From the qualitative part of the survey, it emerged that many members of the groups under study are not involved in such activities strictly for religious reasons, but also for social ones: only 22.8% of Filipinos answered that they take part in such activities merely for religious reasons. Indeed, from the qualitative research, it emerged that special masses are organized solely for the Filipino community in all the Catholic churches of large cities of the RoC every Sunday and that the Filipino community organizes most of their activities in geographical proximity to the Catholic churches. They organize bazaars with products from the Philippines, parties, other social events, etc. These masses, in addition to offering religious services, seem to play an important role in the community’s reproduction and cohesion. Many participants in the qualitative part of our research said that meeting with friends in places of worship is important. In addition, in many interviews it emerged that places of worship were also places of socialization, at least for newcomers. It is indicative that in the question “What are the main reasons for participating in religious activities?,” in which participants could choose more than one answer, 18% of Filipinos responded “to meet my friends,” 16% “to meet the ‘right’ kind of people,” 20% “to meet my compatriots,” while 36% “to keep a connection with my culture of origin.” In the qualitative part of the research, there were many instances of participants who explained why they attend religious services for social rather than religious reasons. F., a thirty-two-year-old Syrian immigrant, said that when he

70%

strictly religious reasons 60%

50% to meet with friends

40% to meet the ‘right’ kind of 30% people

20% to meet with compatriots

10% to maintain a connection 0% with my culture of origin Filipions Sri Lankans Russians Syrians Figure 2 Reasons for Participating in Religious Activities

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338 Kouros and Papadakis first migrated to the RoC, he started visiting the local mosque in the city of Larnaca, in order to accumulate social capital and knowledge about the host country. In his words:

If we go to a foreign country for the first time, the first thing we do is to visit the mosque. Because if you go at the mosque, you will find those that are, say, your, umm, people, I don’t know, and you will start asking, for sure.

In this case, religion is clearly perceived as a factor that contributes to social capital accumulation as well as to adaptation to the host society. In a similar vein, M., 23-year old, immigrant from the Philippines stated:

Q. Do you have friends here in the RoC? A. I have many friends. I have my friends from the Legion of Mary, the church, we meet on Sundays, and other friends. Q. Are most of them from the Philippines? A. Yes, from the Philippines…34

An account provided to us by K., a twenty-six-year-old Sri-Lankan Catholic woman, was in agreement with the previous statements, as she argued that Catholic people “are helping each other.” From the interviews as well as quantitative data presented earlier, it be- comes clear that religious services contributed to the accumulation of social capital and helped immigrants acquire a local knowledge of the country they immigrated to. Very few Russians and Syrians participants were members of religious associations—4% and 1.2% respectively—while 33% of the Filipinos and 21% of the Sri Lankans were members of such associations. Most participants, regardless of nationality, answered that all or most of their friends belonged to the same religious and ethnic group. As far as religious groups are concerned, 79% of the Filipinos, 67% of the Sri Lankans, 71% of the Syrians, and 78% of the Russians answered that all or most of their friends share the same religion. Most of the participants’ spouses also shared origins. A substantial majority of 68% of participants responded that they suffered some kind of religious discrimination during their stay in the RoC.

34 The Legion of Mary is an international association of Catholics who “serve the Church and their neighbour on a voluntary basis in about 170 countries.” The Legion of Mary, “Home,” 2018. http://www.legionofmary.ie/ (accessed 10 February 2016).

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Religion, Immigration, and the Role of Context 339

Russians

Syrians discrimination for religious Sri Lankans reasons

Filipinos

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% Figure 3 Religious Discrimination

The majority of Sri Lankans are Buddhist, and they represent a religion historically unknown to the RoC. There were cases of instrumental uses of religious identity recorded in the interviews, since some of the Sri Lankan immigrants are Catholics. According to S., a thirty-year-old Sri Lankan Buddhist, many women from Sri Lanka, even though Buddhists, publicly claimed to be Catholic, as they believed that Catholics are treated in a better way by Cypriots. In her words, “Here all are Christians. It’s better to be a Catholic.” In cases that religious affiliation was perceived as a stigma by immigrants, it was found that there were more instances in which such tactics of either concealing or not disclosing religious identities were employed. S., a nineteen-year-old Syrian, said that he “can’t go out someplace with my friends, to a club or somewhere else and not have a drink. I can’t. Maybe if I was living in Syria I wouldn’t drink because only a few people drink there, but in the RoC everybody drinks [laughs].” He admits that he believed it is wrong: “If I was a father, I would say the same things to my son too.” Syrians are Muslims by majority and the most discriminated against group for religious reasons according to the research results. This seems to be related to the general negative attitude towards Muslim immigrants in the eu and is clearly influenced by the past conflicts of Greek Cypriots with Turkish Cypriots and the 1974 Turkish invasion. Indeed, “in examining ethnic discrimination in Cyprus, one can view discriminatory practices against members of each community on the ground of ethnicity and religion interchangeably.”35 A., a fifty- six-year-old Syrian, told us that the role and influence of the Church of Cyprus

35 Nicos Trimikliniotis, “Report on Measures to Combat Discrimination in the 13 Candi- date Countries (Vt/2002/47),” Country Report (Cyprus: mede European Consultancy— Migration Policy Group, 2003).

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340 Kouros and Papadakis was significant and that “there was much discrimination back then; people thought that being Syrian and Turk was the same thing. Everybody was calling me ‘Turk’ then.” Similar accounts were recorded in other interviews as well. In these accounts, it was evident that local identity was an important factor affecting RoC locals’ perception of different religious communities. Muslims have been in many cases conflated with Turks, the constitutive ‘Others’ of Greek Cypriots, and have also been discriminated against more than other religious groups. At the same time, even though Russians experienced discrimination, this was rare, and it was based on ethnicity rather than religion. An interlocutor told us indicatively that he “had the advantage of being Russian and white. If [he] was black or belonged to a different religion, if [he] wasn’t a Christian Orthodox, it would have been much worse.” Many of the Syrian participants, as it emerged from the qualitative part of the research, thought that there was a religious symbolic boundary between them and the Greek Cypriots. Yet, the majority of Filipinos and Sri Lankan Catholics believed that they were being discriminated against based on ethnicity. As K., a twenty-six-year-old Sri-Lankan Catholic woman argued:

I’ll tell you one thing, which I’ve heard many times. I don’t want to say who did this, but I hear them talking when a girl from Sri Lanka or Viet- nam come to help, work, and she gets paid, right? And many times, Cy- priots like to call them mavrou, do you understand? Once I said, cut your hand and I’ll cut mine, and you’ll see the blood will be red. And it’s not about skin color, it’s because she helps with the housekeeping, I think.36

In this quote, it is evident that discrimination is attributed to ethnicity and, even more so, to occupation and social status, unlike with the case of Muslims. As for the degree to which immigrants have developed religious habits that tend to converge with those of Cypriots, in other words the degree of their religious assimilation, at least in terms of subjective religiosity, a statistically significant negative correlation was observed between the duration of stay in the RoC and subjective religiosity in the research sample. However, if each group is analyzed separately, although there is no statistically significant correlation for Russians regarding subjective religiosity, another, equally important dimension of religiosity, the ritual one, provided interesting results: while in

36 Our translation, from Greek. ‘Mavrou’ is a derogatory term commonly used in the Greek Cypriot dialect that refers to female immigrant housekeepers whose skin color may be darker than Greek Cypriots, which literally means ‘little black girl.’

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Religion, Immigration, and the Role of Context 341 all other immigrant groups participation decreased after the migration to the RoC, for Russians it increased. This was confirmed by the results of the qualitative research, in which even two cases of religious content assimilation were recorded. D., a male Russian immigrant who came to the country at the age of ten and by the time of the research was twenty-five, said:

My parents were not religious. My dad comes from a Jewish family and my mom from a very Soviet family and Soviet families are not religious, but one or two years ago, my father converted to Christianity, which was very strange for me. I tried to talk to him about it, but I never understood why or what happened […] And my mom was baptized this year.

Another male interviewee also of Russian origin, who came to the RoC at an early age, gave a similar account, stating that even though his mother was not religious before immigrating to Cyprus, after immigration, “she often goes to church.” As in Russia, which experienced a religious revival in the post-socialist era, this was also observed with Russian immigrants in the RoC, even though, as explained below, there might have been other reasons for the increase of the participants’ religiosity besides this religious revival.37 Many of our Russian in- terlocutors stated that they experienced an increase in religiosity after immigrating to Cyprus, and most of them associated it, either directly or indirectly, with local factors. One of them said that she started believing in Cyprus, as she considered it a “more open” society in terms of expressing religiosity. This is similar to other accounts as well. This shift in Russian immigrants’ religious behavior could be understood as a result of the religious revival in Russia, as well as be interpreted in regard to the local population’s predominant religion. In other words, it could be a result of religious assimilation of Russians in the new religious environment in terms of increasing religiosity. This possibility was further supported by qualitative data. Indicatively, N., thirty-two-year old male Russian, said that “it was helpful that Cypriots have the same religion as me, and, of course, we didn’t have any trouble. I attend any church; any Cypriot Church, and I have any [sic] problem. I mean I enter any church.” This account and other similar ones high- light another dimension that was not so evident previously but is important. That is the matter of access to religious facilities, which is increased for Ortho- dox Christian immigrants in Cyprus because of the plethora of such churches

37 On the religious revival in Russia, see Chris Hann (ed.), Religion, Identity, Post-socialism (Halle & Saale: Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, 2010).

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342 Kouros and Papadakis throughout the country. In a similar vein, R., a forty-seven-year-old Russian woman, noted: “I came to Cyprus and saw what you had, but again I wasn’t interested because it wasn’t a part of my life […]. Back then because I was living without church, then little by little, thank God it is an Orthodox country.” In relation to the negative correlation between the length of stay in the RoC and religiosity, according to the theory of social inclusion, the length of stay in a host country may result in lower levels of religiosity.38 This is the result of a multitude of factors, such as the degree of secularization of the host society, the level of assimilation of immigrants to the religiosity of the local population, etc. In this case, it is clear from the results that all the groups under study have, in one way or another, changed their religious behavior after their migration to the RoC, and this behavior continues to change as the length of stay increases. Even Russians, who are the least religious of the four groups and less religious than Greek Cypriots, tended, unlike the others, to become more religious during their stay in the RoC, even though this trend was weak. Trimiklini- otis and Demetriou also found that Russian and Serbian immigrants in the RoC were better received than others by the Greek Cypriots because of their shared religion.39 Moreover, this result is important since there has undoubt- edly been an increase in religiosity in Russia along with other post-socialist countries following the 1990s. Meanwhile, it has also been argued that religion has also become politicized and commodified in these states after socialism.40 The issue of the religiosity and the religious habits of Russians who emi- grated to Western countries after 1990 has received almost no academic attention. This research concluded that, at least in the case of Russian immigrants in the RoC, a predominantly Orthodox country, religiosity tended to increase, because the majority of the locals practice the same religion as Russians, because the disruptive event of immigration puts people in a vulnerable position, which promotes religiosity, and because religiosity is on the rise in their country of origin. For other migrant communities, such as Syrians, Sri Lankans, and Filipinos, religion seemed to act both as a bridge and a barrier to integration. On the one hand, as mentioned above, the community dimension of religion, which is extremely important to immigrant communities, seemed to be very important in this case. Religious structures and services fulfill very important social functions that are critical to the cohesion and reproduction of immigrant communities. The members of these communities, especially the newcomers,

38 Need & De Graaf, “The Changing.” 39 Trimikliniotis & Demetriou, “Cyprus.” 40 Hann, Religion.

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Religion, Immigration, and the Role of Context 343 generate social capital through their involvement in religious activities, clubs, etc. Also, they have a chance to socialize by participating in religious events and activities. On the other hand, socializing and acquiring social capital by such means has an arguably more problematic side. These practices can lead to immigrant communities becoming more isolated and have a negative impact on the in- termingling of their members with locals and members of other communities. As Yao Lu, Danching Ruan, and Gina Lai have argued, since social networks of immigrants are composed of co-ethnics, they could increase social exclusion and lack of acceptance.41 Immigrants’ social networks are often mostly composed of co-ethnic immigrants. It has been argued that such over-reliance on co-ethnic networks tends to exacerbate social exclusion and lack of acceptance, by limiting immigrants’ participation in certain economic and social activities and consequently limiting their potential for upward mobility.

5 Conclusions

This paper has demonstrated that we should move our focus beyond the theologizing/alienating hypotheses and the bridge/barrier dichotomy when assessing the impact of migration on religiosity and religious integration respectively. We have shown that the impact is different in strength as well as in form depending on a wide range of factors, which are related to both the context of origin and the context of the destination society. Moreover, this impact may depend on socioeconomic statuses or a combination of different variables. To say that migration is either theologizing or alienating could be an oversimplification, as it omits peculiarities of cultural, religious, social, and economic nature. In a similar vein, religion cannot be either a bridge or a barrier in general. It is certain religions in certain contexts that could possibly be either a bridge or a barrier. In our case, the examples of Syrians and Russians in the RoC are illuminat- ing. Religion in the case of the Syrians places community members at a dis- advantageous position in terms of integration, since religion is an important part of the Greek Cypriot ethnonational identity, and Muslims are commonly regarded as the religious ‘Others’ of Greek Cypriots.42 Furthermore, the fact

41 Lu, Ruan, & Lai, “Social.” 42 In addition, Muslim immigrants have been represented as the biggest cause of the ‘problem’ of ‘illegal’ immigration in Greece as well. See Anna Triandafyllidou, “Addressing Cul- tural, Ethnic and Religious Diversity Challenges in Europe: A Comparative Overview of 15

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344 Kouros and Papadakis that Sri Lankans and Syrians were clearly those who believed that they have been discriminated against on the basis of religion further supports the argument. We would suggest that in the case of the RoC, immigration is theologizing for Russians, i.e., their religiosity increases, based on at least some dimensions, and alienating for Syrians, as certain dimensions of religiosity decrease in their case. This general statement holds truth, albeit is not useful in terms of interpretation. Only if we consider the characteristics of these groups in terms of religion and social status, alongside the characteristics of the host society, will we be able to understand how religion can be used instrumentally towards integration. In many cases, certain religious behaviors are either em- phasized (religious participation, content assimilation in the case of Russians) or concealed (Muslims drinking alcohol to ‘fit in,’ Buddhists presenting them- selves as Catholics, etc.). The choice of such tactics depends largely on the perceived or anticipated reaction of locals towards manifestations of religious identities. Overall, this paper has demonstrated the importance of the context of origin and of the host society, namely the traits of the receiving society regarding the role of religion in the process of integration of immigrants and their religious background. As stated earlier, processes related to accumulation of social capital, integration, and religious assimilation have different implications for different religious groups in the RoC. Those implications largely rely upon the various contextual factors of the RoC. For example, the only cases of strategic, instrumental uses of religion were observed with Muslims and Bud- dhists, while the only cases where we can clearly speak of assimilation and, interestingly enough, content assimilation were those of Russian atheists who became Christian Orthodox. We thus argue for the need to produce more finely tuned explanatory sche- mata to explore the effect of immigration on religiosity based on the evaluation of a number of variables. The comparative study of different migrant groups in the same host society can both challenge and enrich theoretical understandings, by placing the specific context under the spotlight. In other words, we have shown that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ answer to whether religion is a bridge or a barrier to integration of immigrants, nor to whether or not it is a theologizing experience. The factors that should be assessed are many, and most of them relate to the context of the destination society as well as that of the host society.

European Countries,” Overview National Discourses, Comparative Country Report (Flor- ence: European University Institute, 2011).

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Religion, Immigration, and the Role of Context 345

Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the Solidarity Funds of the European Union and the Ministry of Interior, Republic of Cyprus under the grant Priority 2, Action 2.2 C3, 2012 Annual Programme. We thank Dr Nicos Trimikliniotis for provid- ing feedback to the initial report from which this partly drew. We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewer for their useful comments.

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