The digitalization of worship practices during the coronavirus pandemic in the context of the mediatization of orthodoxy

Abstract

The article describes how the closure of churches during the Easter period due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the quarantine measures led to the shift of everyday liturgical and communication practices to online forms. The experience of distance church life" in April-June 2020 has shown that both the mediatization of Orthodoxy and the development of Orthodox segment of the internet reached a fundamentally new stage. The author examines this stage using the concept of participatory culture introduced by Henry Jenkins and the cultural studies approaches based on the categories of interactivity and immersion. The shared experience of online worship over a span of several months and the degree of participants co-presence and emotional involvement point to a new level of mediatization that entailed the production and consumption of textual, audio and video content in the course of vertical and horizontal communication. This experience also showed the active development of participatory practices, including the strengthening of interactivity of worship, the unprecedented intensity of immersion, and the prospects of substantial changes in the liturgical life driven by digitalization.