Mazda Antia, a 27-year-old attorney, is used to people
asking if he's named after a car.
"No, the God of the Zoroastrians," he tells them.
"Oh, you're from Jamaica," they say.
"I'm not Rastafarian," he responds. "I'm Zoroastrian."
Young Zoroastrians throughout the country often have a lot of explaining to do,
Antia said at the North American Zoroastrian Congress, held Thursday through
Sunday in Chicago. One of the oldest monotheistic faiths, Zoroastrianism is
also among the smallest, with an estimated 200,000 members worldwide, 20,000 of
whom live in the United States and 700 of whom reside in the Chicago area.
Few people in this country have heard of their code of ethics, their prayers or
fire ceremonies. Fewer know what it's like to be a young Zoroastrian living in
the United States.
For four days at the conference, the children of Indian and Iranian immigrants
talked about the challenge of preserving their ancient tradition. Is it enough
to be born Zoroastrian or do they need to perform the rituals? Is intermarriage
a sin or can they marry Christians or Jews without diluting the faith? And how
can they best learn the central tenets of their tradition--and explain it to
Americans who can't even pronounce it?
"Once our parents are gone, are we going to keep the traditions alive and
know what they mean?" said Negin Sharyari, 20, a student at the University
of California at Irvine.
Zoroastrianism was founded about 1800 B.C. in Persia by the prophet
Zarathushtra. The religion flourished through the rise and fall of many civilizations
and became the state religion of the Great Persian Empire.
After the Muslim invasion of Persia in 652 A.D., many Zoroastrians fled to
India, where they became known as the Parsees. The first Zoroastrians from
India migrated to the United States in the 1950s.
The religion teaches of one supreme God, Ahura Mazda ("Wise Lord")
and stresses that people are granted freedom of choice and are responsible for
their actions. The prophet encouraged his followers to develop the values of
righteousness, service and devotion to attain perfection and immortality. Each
individual is responsible for improving the lot of humanity rather than relying
on an omnipotent God.
"God needs us as much as we need God," Antiasaid.
Zoroastrians are encouraged to pray five times a day, to live in harmony with
nature and to venerate all light and fire as symbols of God's creation and
goodness. Their God is not to be feared but to be known as a friend and ally
who can be served through a system of rational ethical norms rather than blind
faith. Asceticism and celibacy are rejected for Zoroastrians, including
priests.
Antia, who grew up going to the Zoroastrian Association of Chicago's center in
Hinsdale--one of two dozen in the United States--is a priest who wears white
robes and performs initiations, marriages and funerals for the community in the
presence of an eternal flame.
At the age of 12, he told his father that he wanted to be a priest, so he went
to India to participate in a 30-day ceremony.
When he returned, a public school teacher said he didn't understand how a boy
so young could be a priest. "But for me it was very natural," he
said. "This is what I was." It was just as natural to pursue a career
in law, said Antia, who works as a law clerk for a federal judge in Ft.
Lauderdale.
Antia hopes to encourage other young people to find a way to integrate their
religious and secular lives, to learn the Zoroastrian philosophy and to teach
it to others. "It's not just a matter of ritual," he said. "We
need to know the message that impacts your daily life first."
Roshni Jamsetjee, 14, wears a daily reminder of the message. Under her Old Navy
T-shirt, she wears a sudreh: a thin muslin garment with a pocket in the center
to hold one's good deeds. That's in keeping with the religion's motto:
"Good Thoughts. Good Words. Good Deeds."
Wearing the sudreh in a school where everyone tries to be the same "means
I'm proud of my religion," she said.
Her friend Farrah Siganporia, 14, agreed: "We're not embarrassed of being
different."
Darius Dadabhoy, a 28-year-old banker from Chicago, said that in any religious
tradition, pride in one's culture does not always translate into understanding
the rituals, such as the initiation ceremony in India he underwent at age 12.
He remembers sitting in a bathtub and wondering why someone had cracked an egg
over his head--which turned out to be a Hindu tradition, not Zoroastrian. And
he had no idea when he sipped consecrated bull's urine that it was part of a
ancient Zoroastrian ritual of purification--since replaced by pomegranate juice
in North America.
A youth session Thursday at the conference addressed issues of culture and
identity. The audience applauded at statements supporting the practice of
conversion, which is rejected in North America by some Zoroastrians. The young
people also voiced enthusiasm for the possibility of intermarriage, a common
occurrence among North American Zoroastrians, although Sharyari said many
parents worry that intermarriage will dilute the faith.
Speakers stressed the importance of such gatherings as the conference and
summer camps to educate Zoroastrian youth. Still, many people attending the
conference said they came for the solidarity.
It's about familiarity, said Dadabhoy: "You see 500 people who kind of
look like you."