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Accepted Paper:
Hashtag pilgrimages through the war zone
Anna Niedźwiedź
(Jagiellonian University)
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24 2022 many sacred sites and pilgrimage routes in Ukraine became endangered and some were physically damaged. In this paper I will focus on virtual pilgrimages to Ukrainian Christian shrines which appeared in Polish internet during the war.
Paper long abstract:
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been followed by many people all over the world through various Internet media. Not only official news agencies but also ordinary people have been creating messages and putting footages of horrible events happening in their cities, villages and neighborhoods. Among images depicting atrocities of war, reports on religious shrines and endangered or damaged pilgrimage sites have also appeared. In this paper my focus will be on Christian shrines in Ukraine (mostly Orthodox and Greek Catholic). I will analyze, in particular, virtual pilgrimages to Ukrainian Christian shrines which appeared in Polish internet during the war.
The first week of the war coincided with the beginning of the Lent season in the Roman Catholic church (Ash Wednesday on March 2; the Orthodox and Greek Catholic Lent in 2022 began on Monday, March 7). At this time “The Lent pilgrimage through Ukraine” was initiated on Facebook by one of the Catholic portals in Poland. Other religious and spiritual on-line responses to the war also followed and many of them can be interpreted through the category of pilgrimage.
In this paper I will discuss a few examples of these activities that reflect the complex role played by the “hashtag pilgrimages” in time of war. The transformative dimension of these pilgrimages is highlighted by reflections on the material dimension of pilgrimage sites and routes, spiritual consolation, bodily and timely involvement in pilgrimage as well as questions concerning ecumenical and interreligious relations (Roman and Greek Catholic, various Orthodox churches).