Christianity arrived in Kampung Sawah through F. L. Anthing, a Protestant Dutchman who built a congregation by weaving local mystical practices -- what the Betawi call ngelmu -- into Christian worship. It worked, for a time. But accusations of syncretism eroded the experiment, and by 1895 the congregation had splintered into three factions. One followed a teacher named Laban in the western part of the village. Another gathered around Yoseh in the east. The third was led by Guru Nathanael, an assistant teacher who had been fired from his position at the Protestant church. Stung by his dismissal, Nathanael walked to Jakarta Cathedral on Banteng Square and asked the Catholic Church to send a priest to Kampung Sawah. Pastor Schweitz came, baptized 18 children, and October 6 became the birthday of the Kampung Sawah Catholics. What began as one man's grievance became a parish that has endured for over a century.

Long before any church stood in Kampung Sawah, the Betawi practiced bebaritan. It was an animist rite: residents gathered food from their own harvests, arranged it on wide banana leaves at a site considered haunted, and lined up while a ritual leader chanted incantations to the denghaeng and dedemit -- the spirits and guardians of the place. After the chanting, everyone ate together, accompanied by traditional Betawi dances and music. The last bebaritan in its original form took place around 1963 or 1964. By then the ritual had already begun modernizing; its final iteration featured dangdutan, the popular Indonesian music style. But the impulse behind it -- gratitude for the harvest, respect for the unseen -- did not disappear. It migrated into the church.

In 1936, Pastor Oscar Cremers blessed the rice harvest at St. Servatius for the first time, and the sedekah bumi -- earth almsgiving -- became a Catholic ritual held every May 13. At its simplest, the ceremony involves blessing the harvest and sharing a portion with the penderep, the workers who help landowners reap their crops. Church members bring coconut, durian, jackfruit, rambutan, cassava, and rice to the altar during Mass. But the centerpiece is the dodol. Before dawn on the day of the festival, the cooking begins. For seven hours, the sticky confection must be stirred continuously. The rules are precise and pre-Christian in origin: tap the cauldron three times to request that the dodol set within the allotted time. If it refuses, throw the entire batch into a flowing river. Only the eldest person present may taste the kole, the half-finished dodol. The fuel must be rambutan wood or coconut fronds, because they produce little ash. The fire must stay small and must never go out.

On May 13, 1996, the church formalized what had been happening informally for decades. Six Betawi men and six women were appointed as members of the Saint Servatius kinship, a confraternity that revived the Catholic tradition of expressing faith through outward cultural forms. The men wore black songkok caps, komprang pants, white sadaria shirts, red sarongs, and carried machetes. The women wore white veils, batik sarongs, and white kebaya. For the first time, a tanjidor music corps -- the brass-heavy Betawi ensemble whose origins trace to Portuguese colonial influence -- played during the service. The hymns were recomposed in Betawi melodies, mostly by a parishioner named Marsianus Balita. After Mass, the congregation gathered for a communal meal in the churchyard and at the Servas warung across the street. Benyamin Sueb songs filled the air -- the beloved Betawi comedian and singer whose music is as much a part of Jakarta's identity as the city's traffic.

Kampung Sawah is not solely Catholic. The village is known across Jakarta for something increasingly rare in a world of religious polarization: families in which Muslims, Christians, and Buddhists share the same household. The phrase "living with different religions under one roof" is not a metaphor here; it describes the literal domestic arrangements of many families. St. Servatius exists within this ecosystem of coexistence, its rituals shaped as much by Betawi identity as by Roman doctrine. The Our Father in Betawi, the dodol stirred before dawn, the tanjidor at communion -- none of these are concessions to local culture. They are local culture, wearing vestments. In a megacity of over 30 million people, this village parish remains small enough that everyone knows the oldest person who gets to taste the kole. That intimacy, as much as any theology, is what holds the place together.