The Question of Religion

I'm listening to a BBC's podcast "From Our Own Correspondent". It's the last week's episode; I'm a little behind on my favorite audio-fix. One of the story is from Lebanon. Several couples there staged a fake civilian marriage ceremony as a demonstration against the religious-only marriage enforced in the country. Civilian marriage doesn't exist in Lebanon. Each religious entity creates rules for the marriages of its flock. That way the Muslims are married under the Islam laws and Muslim men can have up to four wives, while Christians and Jews are stuck with one. Christians complain that divorce is all but impossible to obtain from the church, and so on...

I grew up in a country called Yugoslavia. It doesn't exist anymore, gone up in the smoke of war. It was a peculiar mix, that Yugoslavia, made up of six different nations in the form of its six republics, spanning across three religions: Roman Catholic, Orthodox Christian and Islam. To make it all more interesting, the political order of the day was socialism. Growing up in that hodge-podge of cultures and religions, we boys from Zagreb (population about 700,000) were blessedly oblivious of the religious differences. Zagreb was on the Roman-Catholic side of the country, so we went to the midnight mass every Christmas, but our main goal was to install ourselves next to some cute girls so we can hold their hands when the time comes to "share peace with thy neighbor" and, if we're lucky, that could lead to a conversation afterward and possibly a date in a less pious environment. That was pretty much the extent of our religious zeal.

My closest friend at the time, Bruno, was marrying a girl he met at the university, and I was asked to be the best man. Since the bride was from a village near the border with Serbia, the wedding was being held in her village. It was going to be conducted in the church. Before we all lined up at the altar, the priest called the best man and the maid of honor to the little alcove behind the altar where we had to sign the papers as witnesses. I gave him my name, DOB and address; he then turned and asked what was my religion. And there my mind failed me. For the life of me I couldn't remember what we called our religion. We referred to the church only as "the church". I was so ignorant of the fine nuances that distinguished "our" church from the "Serbian church" that I wasn't even sure which one was the one the bride and the priest belonged to. My mind racing and still drawing blanks, the priest and the maid of honor looking at me patiently, I pull what I hoped to be a smug smile and said: "My religion? The TRUE one, of course." The priest smiled a satisfied smile. I peeked over his shoulder as he wrote "Roman Catholic" next to my name. Just like that. I could have declared myself an Orthodox and I don't think I'd care much. When it was the maid's turn to declare her religion, she looked at me, smiled and said "The TRUE one!"

When the war in Yugoslavia broke out few years later, the country ripped apart first at the seam which held together the catholics and the orthodox. The bride's village fell to Serbian hands and, since it was a predominantly catholic village, all the villagers were expelled, their farms taken by the orthodox neighbors. Only then I understood the smiles both the priest and the maid of honor gave me that day at the church. I declared myself as one of them in the divide I didn't even know that exists.