Two groups:
The first group arrived in the 14th and 15th centuries
The second group arrived in Moldavia in the 16th to the 18th centuries
The Csángós villages have had few connections with Hungary from the end of the 15th century the only contact was through the church
The Csángós live - almost exclusively - in villages. Only 1 % of them are intellectuals. 10 % of them are illiterate and 40% are half illiterate. About 10% of the young people graduate from high school and every 10th of them continues their studies at the different departments of universities/colleges.
The most important holidays are the annual feasts on the day of the patron saints of local churches.
Disrespect for religious morals is severely punished by priests (e.g., public humiliation, excommunication)
Religion is more powerful than the state.
Since Csángós did not take part in the formation of any nation the only identity they posses is religion.
In the 16th and the 17th centuries four different organizations of the Catholic Church were present in the area:
The priests under polish control, the Jesuits, the Italian missionaries and the Bosnian missionaries and Hungarian Monks.
The four parties often fought each other and paid little attention to serving the people.
The language of the liturgy continued to be Latin and people could not communicate with their priests.
The 18th century did not bring any changes, although the Vatican issued an order that services should be celebrated in the mother tongue of the flock, the Austrian counsels sent this information to Rome claiming that Moldavian Catholics did not need Hungarian priests.
In the 19th century the Rumanian nation state was born and the Csángós became the target of the assimilation policy. Religion taught in Rumanian became a compulsory subject in school and bilingual catechisms were replaced by monolingual Romanian. Today this situation remains the same.
This is manly due to the prestige of the priests. Since the religious services are preformed in Rumanian and the priests themselves speak Rumanian, this language is seen as highly prestigious.
The political changes after 1989 brought some improvement in the civil society. The Changoes have their own monthly journal (Moldvai Magyarság, "Hungarians of Moldavia"), a Chango civil society has been established in Bacau, (Association of Chango Hungarians in Moldavia), young Changoes have their own organization (Via Spei) and several private foundations ("Szeret-Klézse" Foundation) serve their educational and cultural aims. Young Changoes also have the possibility to get fellowships for higher studies in Hungarian language, in the Transylvanian region of Romania, or in Hungary.
