The virtual world of the Internet is acknowledged as a potentially innovative way of doing research on faith. Computer mediated religious communication is a relevant field of research at the ...beginning of the 21st century and a significant source of data for researching religious identity, communities and the ritual use of the Internet. Using the examples of two monasteries of the Serbian Orthodox Church, we will attempt to examine new ways in which the church mediates in the communication of the faithful with god, as well as examine new types of spiritual interactions which occur through Facebook. The first part of the paper describes the look and content of different types of communication of orthodox monasteries and churches which emerges on the Internet. The second parts thematically groups and analyzes the visual materials posted by Facebook users, the contents of messages and the descriptions of their religious and spiritual experience, their behavior, and whether and to what extent members of a FB (Facebook) group “like”, share and comment on certain content.
Over the last 20 years, miracles and miraculous acts have been an important part of the multi-layered process of desecularization in Serbia. The Serbian Orthodox Church is trying to revitalize ...orthodoxy as interpreted by the church and draw in as many believers as possible. At the same time, the folk orthodox variant of Christianity is being revitalized among the faithful, mostly through populist interpretations with elements of folk religion. This paper analyzes the public production of miracles in Serbia based mostly on material drawn from the media, but also on personal testimonies of informants who have witnessed such events.
This article observes the consequences of social neglect of the people with disabilities; their vulnerability, and dependency on others along with precarious position of disabled people and their ...families during the first wave of the pandemic. The opportunities for standing out for the disabled peopled people and their caretakers have been pointed out, along with feelings of hopelessness because of lack of network or because of inadequate network of social and medical support during the pandemic.
Higher religiosity of women, which is often taken as an anthropological and sociological universality in Christianity, in spite of numerous examinations doesn’t seem to deliver some universal ...explanation. In the context of evident revitalization of religion in Serbia in past twenty years, a need for reexamining a problem emerges: why, if so, are the "frontrunners" of the religious comeback women? Research of the group of believers in Knjaževac (Serbia) reveals that women are more often believers than men, that they are more eager when it comes to religious activities, that they have taken part in many pilgrimage trips, and that the majority of them experienced visions and apparitions. I see and analyze pilgrimages in the light of the rite-of-passage theory - I will examine their communicational aspect, meanings of spiritual conversion, meanings of messages as interpreted by believers, as well as their latent substance. Gender aspects of the experience of pilgrimage will be analyzed in detail based on results of interactive interviews carried out with the group mostly comprising of women. I will also discuss how a group of believers, mostly female, take active part in the life of local church community, and the phenomenon of the vision and the call as a turning point for conversion and activism in renovation of a shrine.
To deconstruct discourses on motherhood means to answer the questions, how certain gender relationships in the given society are constructed based on the dominant discourse, in which way do they ...become natural relationships and become binding for the members of the community creating the ideal type of woman-wife-mother. If we accept that the dominant motherhood discourse was conceived as the social relation of power, we can also inquire as to its problematizing and transformation. In this paper, on the one hand, religious-magical - practice are analyzed, supporting the discourse of ideal motherhood, and on the other, there is the analysis of the strategies of the magic rites, which form the alternative discourses of - control in the comprehension of woman’s reproductive role in the traditional Serbian culture of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. Cultural concepts of motherhood are directed at the fact that woman is not left with much choice, namely, the alternative discourses of motherhood tell us that women ruled over illegitimate knowledge and magic, performed abortions and in that way enabled women to strike a balance between childbearing and their own wishes and interests. However, this kind of discourse is in contrast with the interests of the church and society, that is, their tendency to use women’s reproductive potential according to the needs of the society and not the needs of women themselves. By deconstructing taboos and magic rites which are involved in creating the discourse of the good and bad mother it is indirectly pointed at the gender construction and the power relations.
The digital world has emerged as a new potential area for religious manifestations and practices. Since the beginning of the 21st century, electronic religious communication has become a field and a ...source of research on religious identity, religious communities, and the ritual use of the internet. By analysing several websites created by the Serbian Orthodox Church, the present study attempts to interpret the nature of the new means of spiritual communication between believers and the Lord, the experience of sacred places through prayer, confession, and the transmission of thanksgiving, as used by the Church.
Vjekoslav Perica, Balkanski idoli: religija i nacionalizam u jugoslovenskim državama (1 i 2), Biblioteka XX vek, Knjižara Krug, Beograd, 2006 (Vjekoslav Perica, Balkan Idols: Religion and Nationalism ...in Yugoslav States, Beograd 2006)
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