Paper short abstract:

Autoethnographic method can be applied as the clue to balance personal impact on the research results of religion. In my study of the cult of the picture of Our Lady of Trakai autoethnography is inevitable and necessary to enclose complicated reality behind history, art and prayers.

Paper long abstract:

The focus of the religion and beliefs might implicate, that a researcher sympathizes with spiritual part of human culture, or on the contrary – seeks to disclose irrationality of supernatural experiences and religious practices. Autoethnographic method could be applied as the clue to balance personal impact on the research results, but in Lithuania autoethnography is still not so welcome. In my research on the catholic cult of the picture of Our Lady of Trakai autoethnography seems to be inevitable for a several reasons – the qualitative interviews with life stories and subjective experiences are collected; the phenomena has involved me personally into propaganda of the cult; the object is in my native town where I was involuntary participant of church activities form the childhood; my own religious experiences makes effect on analytical processes. I know how strictly Catholics were labeled to be heretics by Orthodox Church and vice versa. This cognition comes from personal experience of becoming orthodox in the early nineties. Such tensions were particularly intense in post-soviet times, and it is only one example of the similar issues. Without an attempt understanding mostly silent relations and conflicts between groups, personalities and organization, without involvement of the personal experiences we will see a picture of the Our Lady of Trakai only through the light of art history and sophisticated version of the cult. Yet involvement of the subjective materials opens much more delicate boundaries that have to be explained or even concealed by the researcher.