Among the large Italian cities there is one that stands out above the others when it comes to multiculturalism and multiethnicity, Milan. And right in the heart of the Lombardy capital, in Palazzo Reale, two steps behind the Duomo, the conference took place yesterday “Religious communities in cities, places of meeting and worship”an important moment to reflect and think about how to coexist melting pot of religions that inhabit the city.
To get a complete picture, the 31st was presented Ismu report (data projected to 1 July 2025) on migrations from Dr. Alessio Menonna. The Report shows the overview of foreign residents in Italy, and their religions. They are at the top of the rankings Muslims, who represent 31% of the total (over 1 million and 700 thousand), followed by the Orthodox (28.6%) and Catholics (16%). Among the Muslim faithful, the majority is represented by the Moroccan population (416 thousand), but the most vertical growth is recorded by the Asian communities of Bangladesh (176 thousand, +18%) and Pakistan (165 thousand, +18.2%). Menonna then explained how the current religious composition is no longer the result of recent immigration, but has been formed through long-term processes. Muslims, Orthodox and Catholics represent over three quarters of the total, but the last quarter brings together many different faiths.
The legal framework was drawn up Professor Natascia Marchei (Bicocca University), who recalled that places of worship are not a matter of urban planning, but a question of religious freedom, protected from article 19 of the Constitution. Over the last thirty years, jurisprudence has oscillated between a more open phase, in which places of worship were treated as works of public interest like hospitals or schools, and a more “security” phase, inaugurated after 11 September, in which they became the subject of increasingly restrictive regulations – such as the Lombard regional law of 2015, dubbed the “anti-mosque law” by the media. The Constitutional Court intervened several times to reject these restrictions, until the most important ruling, that of 2019, which established a clear principle: the use of a building for worship cannot be treated differently from any other intended use, unless it involves a real impact on the territory.
The word subsequently passed to professor at the Roma Tre University Maria Chiara Giordawhich told a story that has roots in the nineteenth century, a Turinwhen the Albertine Statute through a series of provisions granted civil and political rights to Waldensians and Jews for the first time. Those freedoms were transformed within a few years into something concrete: the Waldensian temple, the synagogue and the Mole Antonelliana arose near the Porta Nuova station. Alongside these visible and recognizable places, Giorda also showed the other side of the coin: invisible places of worship, such as Muslim prayer rooms, too often unrecognizable from the outside.
Another aspect touched upon concerns the burial of those who sadly pass away. Milan has a particular history regarding this theme: already the original project of The Major Cemetery in fact included separate departments dedicated to the burial of non-Catholics and Jews. That tradition continues today: the municipal regulation, updated in 2025, allows the creation of special departments through an agreement, and since 2004 there has been an agreement between the Municipality and three Milanese Islamic institutions for the management of dedicated areas.
The sociologist Giulia Mezzetti then exposed the case of Brescia, a city with a strong multiculturalism (20% of the inhabitants are foreigners) and an important Muslim component, as well as a significant presence of Sikhswho arrived in the Lombard city in the 90s. The municipality immediately took action for them, creating a foreigners office to help them not only find a home and work, but to understand where they could practice their religion. When the Sikhs prepared to celebrate their annual procession, the municipality intervened with leaflets aimed at explaining the custom to the people of Brescia and accompanying them in accepting a phenomenon to which they were not at all accustomed. Brescia is an interesting case study because, according to Mezzetti, it outlines a pattern of how a place of worship comes to be accepted by the city’s residents. After an initial phase in which it is not tolerated either by citizens or institutions, we move on to a phase in which it is hindered but someone – often the local Catholic Church, with a guarantor role – begins to act as a mediator, until, in the most successful cases, full recognition is achieved, in which the place of worship is felt to be a natural part of the neighbourhood.
Returning to Milan, during the day three religious communities explained the progress of their projects. Monsignor Luca Bressan described the project of the Ambrosiano Monastery which will be built in the former Expo area, next to the Galeazzi hospital and the Human Technopole. It was the two directors of these institutions who cultivated the idea of creating a meeting space between scientific research and the humanistic knowledge preserved in religious traditions. At the center of the project is the creation of a medieval-style cloister, so that it can become a place where what everyone brings is valued.
Mahmuod Asfa, president of the House of Muslim Culture in Milan instead he told the story of the Islamic community, born near via Padova in the 1980s. Back then there were only a few dozen people, but today the center is frequented by over three thousand people, who on Fridays are divided into eight shifts. In 2022 the Municipality has put up a tender for an area of 1,400 square meters in via Esterle, a side street of via Padova. The House of Muslim Culture won the tender and has been working on the project ever since: demolish the old structure and build a real mosque, with a basement for ablutions and community activities, and a prayer room on the ground floor capable of accommodating up to a thousand people.
Andrea Brancato, also known by the spiritual name of Govinda Deva, representative of the Italian Hindu Union, recounted a different path, which started not from a tender but from the direct purchase of a property, in 2019, in via Cassano d’Adda. Brancato insisted a lot on the fact that the temple is not just a place of prayer, but a real meeting space for families, a bridge between the culture of origin and the local one, and a place where a thousand-year-old culture is transmitted – through music, dance, singing, considered true sacred arts in the Hindu tradition.
