Paper short abstract:

COVID-19 forced Russian Orthodox believers to celebrate Easter in their homes. This resulted in extended reflections on the legitimacy of the participation in a ritual performed in a different location and construction/externalisation of a hierarchy of spaces and objects related to it.

Paper long abstract:

Epidemics of COVID-19 led to major lockdowns over the world in 2020. This situation severely limited the possibility of a number of social activities, including religious gatherings. In Russia, the peak of epidemics coincided with the central period in Orthodox calendar – the last week of Lent and Easter. As the Patriarch blessed “stay-at-home” politics, churches were officially closed for everybody but clergy and live streams of services in social media organized, believers had to adopt swiftly to a new mode of co-presence (Urry 2002) in church by participating in services online. To do this, they had to make a choice between the places from which live stream was organized, transform the space of their homes to accommodate sacrality of the event, rethink the locality of their own body in being instantly at home and “in church”, manage communication with the priest, fellow parishioners and family members during Easter night. This involved not only formal decoration of homes but also subtle mechanisms of balancing authority within the network of sacred objects, gadgets and people (e.g., home icons were perceived as “more important” than those shown on screen during service; Patriarch’s service could be viewed on a big screen while a co-presence at one’s own parish’s service could be maintained with help of a small smartphone screen, etc). Basing on digital ethnography (including participant observation online) and 40 in-depth interviews the presented paper will investigate how believers constructed and reflected the space of Easter service in their homes and how the vernacular understanding of church as a unity and as a sacred space has changed in isolation.