Pilgrim Christian Ministry International: una chiesa di guarigione africana a Roma

The “Pilgrim Christian Ministry International” is a Pentecostal African Church widely present in Italy. This paper is based on a fieldwork among members of the Roman branch of the Church. The author stresses the syncretic nature of beliefs and ritual practises, and especially the recover of spirits belonging to African traditional religions, reshaped and integrated in a Christian worldview as demons operating under Satan’s rule. A major role is played by one of these spirits, Mami Wata (Mother of Water) or Marmaid Spirit, whose imagine and cult are perspicuos expression of the ambivalent relationship of African migrants to Western way of life