Misturando massihiyin aos limites do Estado laico

This work explores the apparent “mixture” of massihiyin (Christians in Arabic), both from the Orthodox Church of the Antiochian Patriarchate and from the Maronite and Melkite (or Eastern) rites that belong to the Roman Catholic Church. It is argued that “mixture” means not dilution but containment and convertibility of difference. On the one hand, Maronites, Melchites and Orthodox of Arab origin adopted the Catholicism of Latin rite, Protestantism and to a lesser extent, Spiritism, Umbanda and Candomblé. On the other hand, Brazilians with no Arab ancestry converted to the Maronite, Melkite and Orthodox denominations. Arab Christian difference is constructed and contained in what anthropologist Richard Wilk called “the structure of common difference”. Cultural content takes on a “mutually intelligible” form, if variable, in the so-called “mixture”. Instead of being a benefit or right granted by the secular state, the minority construction of these and other subjects reveals the unresolved contradiction of secularism and the secular state.