In early June, every year, for many generations, Gypsies and Travellers have travelled to the Appleby Horse Fair in Cumbria in their thousands, crossing the moors and fells on their journey in old painted wagons or modern trailers, on roads that their ancestors travelled before them. This journey is what sherar rom (or elder) Billy Welch, the organiser of the fair, and a Romani Gypsy, calls, “our Mecca, our pilgrimage”.
His choice of words is telling. In recent years there has been a revival of a fervent Christian faith that first stirred amongst the Gypsy people in England in the 19th century. Now it has taken root once again, and is spreading fast, across Europe and as far as afield as Latin America and India.
That faith, and the principal church that sustains it – known as Life and Light in the UK – has meant that Romani identity, both in the UK and abroad, is starting to change.
Read on: http://www.newsweek.com/2014/10/17/how-roma-are-becoming-europes-new-moral-army-276033.html
