Rituals in Discourses of Digital Orthodox Christianity: Methodology and Research Trends

In the realities of the millennium the transcendent is banalized – at any moment the user of web 2.0 can find himself in the meditation space of the Buddhist ritual of building a sand mandala or order a moleben in one of the Orthodox churches of the world. The Internet and new media technologies provide an opportunity to host and store data that is potentially accessible to many people. Sacred texts of various religious traditions, rituals and practical instructions to them, liturgies, molebens, magic formulas and so on, are no longer the domain of a narrow circle of charismatic professionals. And that in itself raises the question of authenticity and authority to any user of such information and practices. Are genuine and credible online ritual practices, digitized sacred and teacher texts, symbolic images, icons, tanks, vlogs with detailed instructions on the rules of prayers by agreement or online collective pujas? And, if the adept of the religion is an offline authority to which this question may be forwarded, what should do a neophyte, an interested person or a researcher of religions? The focus of the article is the methodology of studying digital discourse of Orthodoxy concerning the epistemic authority and the legitimacy of online rituals. The author analyzes in detail the key concepts of digital studies interdisciplinary research field. The typology of online religious epistemic authorities by H. Kempbell, the concept of «strategic arbitration» by P.H. Chon and the concept of «religious digital third space» by S. Huve and N.Ash-Sheibiare examined in depth. The results of the author’s probing online study of the Orthodox online practices and digital discourse around them are of particular interest. As a final chord, the article offers specific promising directions of online research of digital Orthodox discourse of Orthodoxy. As such, the paper presents the narrative practices of theological bloggers and theo bloggers, the strategic arbitration of theological bloggers regarding the epistemic authority of the repertoire of variations of the practice of «prayer by agreement» on the digital platforms of the Orthodox social network «Elica» and the mobile application «Prayer by Agreement» and, finally, the hybrid digital proposal on rituals and practices of the network «Elica», «Notes».

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