Vlax Roma

The origins of the Roma people trace back to northern India, from where groups migrated nearly a thousand years ago toward Persia, the Caucasus, and Byzantine territory, reaching the Balkans around the twelfth century. The branches that would come to be called Vlax settled in Wallachia and Moldavia, where they were subjected to slavery for centuries, until liberation in the mid nineteenth century.

It was this history of bondage that gave rise to the name Vlax and, after abolition, drove a new wave of migration: Kalderash, Lovari, and other families left the region in search of a free life, spreading across Europe and later the Americas and Asia, always carrying with them the language and customs that identify them to this day.

Life revolves around the extended family and the clan, units that organize everything from economics to the resolution of internal conflicts, often through a council of elders that judges disputes without turning to the courts of the surrounding society. Notions of honor, purity, and hospitality shape daily life, and loyalty to the group is the highest value of all.

In Pakistan, many Vlax live in the Cholistan Desert, in Punjab, or in the city of Lahore, and many wish to settle in one place, something that today runs into the lack of piped water and electricity. Historically tied to itinerant trades such as music, dance, and metalwork, they continue to face strong restrictions on access to basic services, and the lack of full civil rights reduces local authorities’ interest in helping them settle permanently.

In Pakistan, the Vlax Roma are almost entirely Muslim, and Islam is deeply intertwined with the identity of the country where they live. Added to this are beliefs of their own passed down through oral tradition, such as notions of purity and impurity that regulate life within the clan, and the real weight of dreams, omens, and the authority of elders in community decisions.

In other parts of the world, Vlax families live under Orthodox or Catholic Christianity, also mixed with these same traditions particular to the people, but this reality barely reaches the Vlax of Pakistan, where the Christian presence among them is today minimal.

Vlax Romani has already received its own translation of Scripture, including a New Testament prepared by a pastor of Roma origin, and audio portions in the people’s language now circulate as well. Even so, this material reaches mostly the Roma communities of Europe, and little or none of it reaches the Vlax of Pakistan, marked by orality and low rates of formal schooling, for whom voice and music remain more natural paths than the written text.

In Pakistan, the Vlax Roma live within an almost entirely Muslim society, and there religious identity is fused with national identity: leaving Islam is seen as betraying not only the faith, but the family and the clan. Added to this is a long-standing prejudice against the Roma people, also present in other countries where they live, which reinforces isolation and makes the Christian message something associated with foreigners, not good news for their own people. Poverty and social exclusion make any approach to a faith community different from the predominant one even harder.

In Pakistan, the Vlax Roma face great social exclusion: many live without piped water or electricity, and legal restrictions even prevent them from voting, which reduces authorities’ interest in helping them settle. Breaking this cycle calls for both social justice and the emergence of a faith community that welcomes the Roma people without requiring them to abandon who they are in order to belong. Where Christians of Roma origin already exist, there is a growing need for solid discipleship and trained pastors to help the young church mature within the people’s own culture.