# New religious forms: syncretism and Africanization  
The profound religious dissociation between Africans and Portuguese did not prevent the appearance of religious forms, clearly visible through the presence of black religious figures in the churches - which accounts for the dispersion of Africans throughout the country - as well as the brotherhoods and the many Catholic religious festivals that were taking place, according to the religious calendar, in Portuguese cities, towns and villages. Estranged from their religious leaders, Africans found themselves in the need to invent other forms of religious authority, such as black holy figures, venerated by Africans and Portuguese, who highlight not only the capacity for integration of the African community into the country, but also a particular aspect of religious syncretism resulting from the construction of an 'Africanized' Christianity.  
Accepting the Portuguese initiatives, Africans joined the brotherhoods from an early age, participating in the many organizations and activities of the Church, thus creating a space for the preservation of their specifically African values, leading the more conservative clergy to denounce the existence of religious practices, where the African structure sought to dissolve European rules. Among the confraternities, institutions of a religious nature, which aimed to protect their members, organize celebrations and actions of support and solidarity, consecrating themselves to the cult of a religious figure of Catholicism, the Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Blacks, founded around 1520, bringing together black and mixed-race men and women, enslaved and free, performed a social, economic, moral and religious function that was fundamental in the life of Africans.