How does fleeing to Europe change one’s faith?
The war in Syria shattered a country where different religious communities lived side by side. The main group were Sunni Muslims, next to Shia, Alawite, and Christian minorities. The displacement affected members of all faiths, some of whom ended up in European countries where the practice of religion – including the Christian faith – is different from pre-war Syria in cultural terms. And in many European host countries, the political perception of refugees is marked by an anti-Muslim discourse. It is particularly the populist political parties that pose as defenders of western Christianity and portray Muslims as a threat to security.
While the displaced persons have no choice but to cope with these conditions, the question as to how this affects the religiosity of Syrian refugees has scarcely been addressed in sociological and religious studies research. Financed in Austria by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, the transnational project “Between Intensification and Relativization” has taken on this topic. A team led by Regina Polak and Christoph Novak from the Institute for Practical Theology at the University of Vienna is collaborating with researchers from the universities of Göttingen and Lucerne. The project not only compares Austria, Germany, and Switzerland with their different social and political contexts, but also examines the contrasts between Muslim and Christian displaced persons.
“There are a number of reasons why we are focusing our research on Syrian refugees,” explains Novak. “They are a relatively large group which consists of various Muslim and Christian elements, but this high degree of diversity is hardly taken into account in the public discourse on refugees. At the same time, there are still some gaps in empirical research on the relationship between migration and religiousness.” Syrian refugees have not even been consistently asked about their religious affiliation.
About the project
How does displacement affect religious beliefs? This research project is the first to examine how the religiosity of Syrian refugees in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland has evolved since 2011. Against the backdrop of migration, social debates, and religious affiliation, the experiences of Muslim and Christian refugees are analyzed in a comparative study.
New theoretical tools
The project does not aim to fill gaps in the data, but rather seeks to understand whether, how, and why religiousness evolves as a result of displacement. “Our qualitative research is designed to identify patterns and mechanisms that show us whether religion is gaining or losing significance,” Novak emphasizes. In this context, it has already become clear that the theoretical approach needs to be refined: “Believers are multifaceted and often appear inconsistent. The binary notion – of people becoming either more or less religious – doesn’t really work well,” says Novak. “That’s why we are currently expanding our theoretical toolkit.”
The methodology involved expert consultations and interviews with Christian and Muslim displaced persons from Syria. “We asked about religious life in Syria and then in the host country – and about what has changed,” Novak notes. In some cases, the interviews were also conducted in Arabic by researchers with the necessary language skills. In addition to the interviews, the respondents were invited to document their daily religious lives through photos. The participatory nature of the photovoice approach gives respondents the freedom to make their own associations. The images are later discussed with the researchers in separate interviews.
In the interviews, the researchers have realized how closely religion and culture are intertwined among Syrian refugees – both Christians and Muslims. Religious rituals and festivals are deeply rooted in daily routine and form an essential part of social life. This is also illustrated by the refugees’ photo documentation: the images show many religious symbols in their homes, highlight the significance of the Bible and the Quran, or offer insights into Christmas traditions that are observed more intensely than is customary in Europe.
“Among the Christian respondents, the way they practiced their faith strongly reminded me of the time when Catholicism was still a widespread reality in Austrian cultural and religious life. “Just as was common here a generation or two ago, Syrian Christians still engage in ritual visits to one another during Christmas or Easter,” Polak notes. “In Europe, however, refugees encounter a culture in which religion has largely vanished from public social life and shifted into the private sphere. This separation represents a new phenomenon for them, one they must come to terms with.”
Not every Muslim is devout
Identifying as a Muslim also primarily refers to a practical cultural life and cannot automatically be equated with religious commitment. “Self-identification as a Muslim hardly allows us to draw any conclusions about inner conviction. This distinction often became evident in the interviews,” says Polak. “One participant in Germany really intrigued me in this context: he presented a general self-image as a Muslim that suggested deep religious faith. When asked specifically what religion meant to him personally, he then said he was a non-believer.” Refugees sometimes experience the new religious environment in Europe as contradictory. “Migrants see a Christian Europe with its many religious holidays and churches, only to find that these churches all remain empty. Muslims want to exercise their freedom of religion, but notice that praying in the park or during working hours is not accepted,” Polak explains.
The researchers are currently analyzing the collected data in detail. “It is our initial impression that the national context – i.e., whether the refugees ended up in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland – has relatively little influence on their religious life,” says Novak. Trajectories are highly individual: “If, for example, someone’s religiousness in Syria was motivated by social life rather than personal faith, the loss of that social context during flight will result in religious practice also falling by the wayside,” Novak offers as an example.
Tangible consequences of the headscarf debate
The anti-Muslim social discourse, prevalent in Austria, has a particularly strong impact on Muslim women. “The headscarf debate has consequences: women who want to wear the headscarf point out that it is difficult to practice their religion in public,” explains Novak. “Another striking aspect was that a particularly large number of respondents in Austria miss the muezzin, whereas this was hardly an issue in the other two countries. So far, we have not been able to find an explanation for this.” Anti-Muslim sentiments also affect Christian refugees, Polak adds. “Christians with dark skin also experience racism. Sometimes the wish to protect themselves against this leads to indirect distancing. Those affected then make sure people know that they are not Muslims.”
In the diaspora, religion often proves to be a resource for coping with crises. This said, the researchers did not observe a rigid, conservative adherence to religious practice or a general retreat into religiousness. “Some respondents make a point of sharing positive experiences from their home country with their children, which can result in the children being raised to be very religious. Religion serves not as a means of individual stabilization, but as a way to secure identity across generations,” Polak notes.
A strong community prevents radicalization
Radicalization, which is often a concern voiced in social debates, is rarely the result of an intensified religious life. “Research on radicalization shows that people who are embedded in the religion of their community and free to express their faith in everyday life show no tendency towards fundamentalism,” explains Polak. “The danger of radicalization exists, however, among those who distance themselves from religious communities, who are lonely, and perhaps come upon religion through social media.”
For this reason, Polak calls on churches and religious communities to take responsibility. “From the interviews, we learn that difficulties increase with the extent of individualization. Communities should offer support on the question of how to practice one’s own religion in a new country,” Polak says. “Churches must be more sensitive to the challenges of arriving in a new culture.” At the same time, European societies should learn not to reflexively attribute integration problems to religion. “Our project shows that religious people do encounter difficulties in their social environment,” says Novak. “That is why a more relaxed approach to religion in society would probably help everyone involved.”
About the researchers
Regina Polak is a professor of Practical Theology and Interreligious Dialogue and deputy director of the Institute for Practical Theology at the University of Vienna. This Catholic pastoral theologian studied philosophy and theology in Vienna as well as spiritual theology in the interreligious context in Salzburg. Her research focuses on religion and values, migration, and spirituality.
Christoph Novak is a researcher at the Institute for Practical Theology at the University of Vienna and a research fellow at the Center for European Politics and Democracy Research at the Krems University for Continuing Education. His research focuses, among other things, on religious and social diversity, urban studies, and transformations of democracy. Set to run from 2024 to 2027, the project “Between Intensification and Relativization” is co-funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) to the amount of EUR 270,000.
