DYNAMICS OF SOCIAL FUNCTIONS OF RELIGION AND RELIGIOSITY DURING THE PANDEMIC

Abstract

The article examines the metamorphoses that occurred in the religious practices of various denominations during the pandemic. Through the strengthening, thanks to the pandemic, the dynamics of the social functions of religion (integrative, communicative, normative-regulatory, legitimizing), the author examines the changes in the structure of modern religiosity, highlighting and characterizing three main types: institutional, individual and individual-institutional religiosity. The author pays special attention to the individual-institutional type of religiosity, believing that the carriers of this particular type of religiosity experienced the least psychological problems in connection with the closure of churches, mosques, prayer houses. Analyzing the social functions of religion, and, in particular, the communicative function, the author examines in detail the process of virtualization of religion, which has significantly intensified in the last year and a half (“cyberreligion”, “online religion”), indicates a close relationship between the individual-institutional type of religiosity and the dynamics of communicative the functions of religion, reflected, in particular, in the strengthening of the virtualization of religion. The author sees the key tendency in the change in the structure of religiosity in the change in the ratio between its three main types towards the percentage increase in the carriers of individual-institutional religiosity.