Paper short abstract:

The project addresses the structure and new meanings of online religious practices in the time of war in Ukraine. Rosary online unites thousands of Christian believers daily on zhyve.tv. When started first as a “corona ritual” in 2021, it turned into a “war ritual” after Russia’s aggression in 2022.

Paper long abstract:

The project addresses the religious practice of rosary online (“Vervytsia yednaie”, zhyve.tv) that started first as a “corona ritual” in 2021 and turned into a “war ritual” after Russia’s aggression against Ukraine in 2022. Having reshaped the rosary practice to digital spaces, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church performs its official mission of building a community. However, digitalization processes encourage the church to go further and build even a global online community of Ukrainians. With this study, I argue that online spaces may give believers more freedom to personalize their religious experiences. Still, the rituals also become a tool to expand the influence of religious organizations, assert religious authority and build a loyal community of believers. The research case focuses on the practice of rosary online within the frameworks of hypermediation theory (Evolvi, 2019) and the concept of “media settlers” (Kołodziejska et al., 2022): 1) to demonstrate the fluidity of religious performance between offline and online contexts; 2) to define the roles of religious actors, in particular, religious authorities in the “war ritual”; 3) to study the incorporation of online religious practices into societal and personal life of women believers.

Keywords: online religion, war ritual, Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, rosary