Monasteries of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) on the Internet: New forms of religious and spiritual interactions through Facebook

Abstract

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.

Keywords

• monasteries
• Serbian Orthodox Church
• Internet
• Facebook
• online religion