The Role of Resilience in Maintaining Religious Identity—The Life Story of a Nun

In Hungary, the monastic orders were dissolved in 1950 during the harshest communist dictatorship. A total of 11,538 people were affected by the ban. The consequences of the dissolution of the monastic orders not only affected the people who were directly involved but also practically the whole society. The orders had an important role on the education, society and culture of the country, and their banning for ideological reasons had enormous consequences. The question is how dissolved monks and nuns managed to integrate into a society where they were marginalized. Through the life story of a nun, named Speravia (1914–2009), I present the behavioral patterns which helped to survive the persecution of religion during communism and then in socialism. I found that she maintained her religious identity through change and resilient means. Identity maintenance in modern society is a dynamic process in which there is room for change through constant adaptation to the environment. Her obedience was transformed into accommodation to the political system by making deals with the system. This behavior can be called resilience. Resilient behavior is characterized by both resistance and accommodation. To do this, she had to be active and have the support of her environment. In this study, I used the principles of Grounded Theory, which is a specific content analysis method. I analyzed the interview using the Grounded Theory approach, at least some of its techniques. I coded some parts of the interview line by line and other parts only as units of thought. Then, I aggregated the codes and I formulated categories. After this process, I compared the meanings of the categories and it became clear to me that my interviewee’s behavior could be understood as resilient. This is why I emphasized the role of resilience in identity maintenance in the title of the study. My conclusion is that while Sperávia flexibly adapted to the new political system, she could also preserve her identity as a nun. I call this survival strategy religious resilience.