The Rio World

Brazil's Billy Graham

by Michelle Chihara

photos by Geoffrey Kula

The modern pinkish stucco façade at 85 Washington Street, in Somerville, does not look like the entrance to a $2.5 million complex. You probably wouldn't guess that inside is a 2500-person-capacity hall, a gift shop, a banquet hall, and fully equipped sound and video studios.

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Then again, the Sunday sermons at the Assembleia de Deus (Assembly of God) ask church members to expect the unexpected. "He who has problems is a candidate to receive God's blessing," preached a visiting pastor from California recently. "Everyone is a candidate for God's blessings. He gave me three million dollars! He could give you three million dollars!"

Brazil is a predominantly Catholic country, but evangelical Protestant churches are growing rapidly. The largest evangelical denomination, both in Brazil and here in the US, is the Assembly of God. Pastor Ouriel de Jesus is president and founder of the Somerville church, the "mother church" for the denomination's 62 Portuguese congregations in America. The compact, intense pastor says he has received prophecies and seen spontaneous healings in his church.

Already a local Brazilian celebrity, de Jesus has his Somerville sermons videotaped and then broadcast onto Brazilian Christian cable. On December 14, he and 300 other evangelical pastors are renting out the FleetCenter for a service celebrating the millennium, which he expects will draw about 19,000 people. His sermon will be in Portuguese only, however, because Pastor Ouriel, despite his 14 years in this country, still speaks no English. For a people uprooted from strong family networks under a tropical sun, the Assembleia de Deus clearly provides a support system and a welcome warmth. "It's a totally different thing from Catholicism," says 32-year-old hairdresser Alcima Santana, a recent immigrant and an even more recent convert. "There's more love, more heart. It's not as decorated, not as orthodox. It doesn't have as many rules."

The Assembly of God certainly has rules, though: it demands that its members give up drinking, smoking, and nightclubs. Asked if such restrictions aren't hard on a target population known to be fond of nightlife, Pastor de Jesus says: "It's an emptiness inside that drives you to drink and smoke and do drugs. I have a complete happiness, I miss nothing. I am complete."