A Brief Comparative Study between the Seventh-Day Adventist Church and the Romanian Orthodox Church regarding (Online) Religious Worship during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has paralyzed entire social levels. Organized religion is one of those levels, having suffered a lot due to the closing of churches and the automatic physical cessation of religious services. Both the weekly practitioners and those attending church minimally (say at Easter and Christmas) felt the shock of the closing of the churches. As such, the online environment was the saving option during the pandemic. However, not all churches embraced the move of liturgical services to online from the start, and at the same time, not all churches had a rich history of using digital technologies or the Internet for religious purposes. In this context, I investigate how religious communities succeeded in dealing with the imposed governmental regulations on social distance. I follow the specific religious rituals that have suffered the most by moving liturgy online, rituals such as baptism, Eucharist, burial, etc. Because different Christian churches understand rituals and liturgical practices in different ways, I focus specifically on a succinct comparison between the Romanian Orthodox Church and the neo-Protestant environment, especially the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In addition, I briefly extend the comparison to Adventist communities from the diaspora—especially those from London, the United Kingdom.

1. Introduction

Shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic started, a variety of severe ordinances were put into effect to mitigate the disaster’s potential to spread throughout the world. These social restrictions imposed by the pandemic rapidly forced religious communities to embrace digital technology and social media networks in order to continue their religious activities and ritual practices during the pandemic. “But exactly what the consequences of this rapid digitalization of religious life in Europe will be, for minority traditions, requires further research”.1

Therefore, the article analyses how COVID-19-era norms have shaped religious rituals and practices in Romania. These are the main concerns of the survey I conducted between January and October 2022 to shed light on the use of the Internet and digital technology by the Romanian Seventh-day Adventist Church (both pastors and believers) and Romanian Orthodox Church (both clerics and believers) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the survey involved face-to-face discussions with clerics and believers from both sides between July and October 2022.

Measures for Churches during the Alert Period in Romania

In Romania, religious services in the place of worship were allowed for the Holy Sacrament of Baptism and Marriage, as well as the funeral service, in certain cases, with the strict observance of certain conditions. The participation was reduced to a number of eight people in the first stage, during the isolation, and then to sixteen people in the second stage. In the case of a funeral, when there was no death due to the virus, the service could be performed in the church or, if there is the possibility, in a mortuary chapel or right in front of the church. In the third stage, religious services were allowed with the public in open spaces in front of churches, respecting the distance of 2 m between participants.2 Also, there were believers who worked in the legal field and who explained in detail to the general public what exactly the restrictions are that apply to everyone, including the church, and how they must be respected.3 In Great Britain, the measures taken by the authorities were similar, with the exception of the fact that the churches transmitted the religious services exclusively in the online4 environment during the pandemic restrictions (Andrew and Francis 2023). At the beginning of the pandemic, religious gatherings were allowed with a limited number of people and with respect to health safety measures. But the singing of liturgical hymns was not allowed. Once the number of cases increased significantly, the churches were completely closed. There was no progressive beginning of liturgical services in the church or in open spaces until the measures were lifted.

This article is built on a brief comparison between the Romanian Orthodox Church and the neo-Protestant environment, especially the Seventh-day Adventist Church. I also briefly extend the comparison indicating the Romanian Adventist communities, particularly those from London, the United Kingdom. The extension is important because the diasporic communities are not part of a single Romanian geographical territory. Thus, there are different cultural perspectives on religious practices that can inhibit or allow individuals to adapt their views to their country of residence.

The reason for between those two comparisons is given by the fact that different Christian churches exhibit distinct conceptualizations of rituals and religious practice. Romanian Orthodox Church has a strong tradition and lots of visual sumptuous religious rituals. On the other hand, the Romanian Seventh-day Adventist Church does not have any sacramental theology or clerics practicing liturgical rituals. But because of the Orthodox context, SDAC pays a little religious sacramental tribute on its few liturgical rituals, such as the Holy Supper. However, the strongest tradition of SDAC is the massive use of technology to promote its denominational mission. Moreover, SDAC has developed a uniquely resilient spirit in any period of time in its history. Therefore, SDAC was able to easily adapt to the new context while being cautious not to compromise its denominational identity. The theoretical basis of my study is based on digital uses, which rather focuses on the “socio-communicational and symbolic aspect” of digital uses, which reshapes the concept of an “active user” (Tudor and Herțeliu 2016a, 2016b, p. 209). The active user plays a significant role “in the process of innovation” (De Certeau 1980). The active user not only has access to information with the help of digital technology but also reshapes digital technology “by adapting it to his lifestyle and values” (Campbell 2016).

Besides the differences in liturgical services, there are two other reasons why I chose to make a brief comparison between the Seventh-day Adventist Church and the Romanian Orthodox Church. The first consists of the fact that the Romanian Orthodox Church is the majority in Romania, which has a visible impact on all her religious and social actions. The second is related to ”the contemporary religious media landscape” (Bratosin and Tudor 2018, p. 230). Bratosin and Tudor analyzed two Romanian Christian churches, which, before 1989 as well as after the fall of the communist regime, show the greatest number of religious written press in Romania: the Romanian Orthodox Church and the Romanian Seventh-day Adventist Church. On the other hand, the Romanian media profile is represented by diverse TV channels (the top three TV stations in 2023 are ProTV, Antena 1, and Kanal D).5 In this context, there are other channels, the so-called “niche channels, especially religious ones” (Bratosin and Tudor 2018, p. 230). At the same time, these religious channels try to “gain loyal audience” segments. Thus, the main competitors are Trinitas TV and Speranta TV, the TV channels of the Orthodox Church and the Romanian Seventh-day Adventist Church. Also, both televisions are available live online and broadcast 24/7. Moreover, they are included on the must-carry TVs list of the National Audio–visual Council (NAC)6. When it comes to the engagement of religious media with digital media and the Internet, the digital media landscape in Romania is in permanent development. However, the Romanian Seventh-day Adventist Church, the Romanian Orthodox Church, and other religious organizations make “a corss-media use of the digital technology, a model based on the media networks, which promotes synergies between diferent media (online radio, online magazine, online TV, online books etc.), and develops the information, religious events etc. on all available media” (Bratosin and Tudor 2018, p. 230).

With regard to the limits of my research, I note here three:

(a)

The limitation of the analysis regarding online religious worship to the Romanian Seventh-day Adventist Church, a sample of the Inter-European Division7, and partially to diaspora Romanian Adventist communities from London, the United Kingdom, a sample of the South England Conference8, part of the British Union Conference9, both part of the Trans-European Division Territory.10

(b)

The limitation given by the choice of the sample was reduced to 92 participants, including pastors and believers of the SDAC. However, this limit is compensated by various characteristics of the sample presented above and diasporic mobility of both Adventist clerics and believers. To this is added the fact that the focus of my study was not to present how many clerics and believers have used digital media and the Internet during the COVID-19 pandemic but to highlight how digital technology (re) shaped religious services. Thus, my research is not a statistical approach per se. The current research can be considered an exploratory study. Further studies using random sampling can be performed in the future.11 I isolated my objective to the case of the Romanian SDAC and Romanian Orthodox Church to get into the depths of religious organizations to observe and show how they performed religious services, especially online, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results obtained through this limitation are, in my view, the premises for the future study regarding religious life during the pandemic and also in the field of communication and religious media.

(c)

The data regarding the Romanian Orthodox Church12 are partially limited because the leadership of the Romanian Orthodox Church did not provide any response to the requested questionnaire survey. However, this limit is compensated by the numerous public statements made by the official leaders of the Romanian Orthodox Church during the COVID-19 pandemic. These leaders include the Patriarch Daniel, certain very popular Orthodox archbishops, professors of some universities of Orthodox theology, intellectuals, etc.

2. Relevant Studies and Literature on Religious Communities Trying to Mediate Presence and Distance during the COVID-19 Pandemic

In the last two years since the COVID-19 pandemic ended, a range of scholars and researchers have intensified their scientific efforts to observe the religious communities and their both offline and online religious rituals and practices during the COVID-19 pandemic (Tudor et al. 2021; Andok 2021; Lorea et al. 2022). There are also recent studies from Germany and Poland focusing on the Seventh-day Adventist Church and its religious activity during the COVID-19 pandemic (Kołodziejska 2021; Büssing et al. 2022). Also, there are Romanian Orthodox studies focusing on the Orthodox Church during the COVID-19 pandemic (Gagu 2020; Vanca 2020; Covaci 2021; Nastacă et al. 2023; Sava 2013).

Moreover, there is significant international research conducted by media and communication scholars on the perception of the activities of Christian churches and religious bodies in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic in the foreign press. They proved the positive perception of religious leaders by referring to, e.g., the frames and topoi methodology. For instance, Rončáková (2022) analyzes the neighboring Czech Republic and Slovakia; Leśniczak (2022) analyzes the English-language and German-language press; and Pou-Amérigo (2022) analyzes the news coverage of the Church dealing with the pandemic—Spanish and Italian newspapers (Rončáková 2021, 2022; Leśniczak 2022; Pou-Amérigo 2022).

The present article shows the Romanian context, emphasizing the similarities and differences between the Seventh-day Adventist Church and the Romanian Orthodox Church regarding the use of digital technology to broadcast their religious services during the pandemic. In order to achieve their religious and spiritual objectives, religious communities desire to experience connection, intimacy, and togetherness. That is why, during the pandemic, both the weekly practitioners and those who go to church twice a year (on Easter and Christmas) felt the shock of seeing their churches locked. A satisfying experience for individuals with religious or spiritual commitments fundamentally involves “the sense and sensations of connection, communion, and presence” (Lorea et al. 2022, p. 177).

During the COVID-19 pandemic, “ritual practitioners” were forced by the circumstances to remodel their physical participation in various ways: refraining from hymns singing (not the case in Romania, but this regulation was applied in Great Britain); Eucharist with a disposable spoon in the case of the Orthodox Church; the use of sanitary gloves for breaking bread at the Holy Supper, in the case of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, abstaining from the practice of washing the feet as a practice of the Holy Supper, at church (practice of the Adventist Church), limiting the number of people who can participate in baptism and burial to only eight people including a priest or pastor, etc. I have listed the most nerve-wracking ones. Thus, “with traditional sacred spaces being emptied, reconfigured online or in backyards and balconies”, “new modalities of mediation” involving the use of technology have appeared, reshaping the sacred space and even the “body sensorium” (Lorea et al. 2022, p. 178). Paying attention to the liturgical actions at any church shows how both believers and clerics are trying to connect with “external” dimensions of reality. Thus, spiritual aspirations are reached through the experience of worship. The presence of the divine or co-presence with other members of the community is achieved by practitioners using a variety of spiritual habits, such as prayer, and ritual practices like scripture readings (both present in Orthodox and Adventist communities), relics (in the Orthodox Church), pilgrimage (in the Orthodox Church), prayer beads (in the Orthodox Church), Eucharist, Baptism, matrimony, funerals, musical instruments (in the Adventist Church), and audio–visual technologies.

Based on other scholars’ observations (Meyer 2011; Eisenlohr 2011) regarding the relationship between religion and the media, Lorea et al. (2022) indicate that “in any ritual community there is a gap or distance, between the devotee, and the religious, spiritual or transcendent goal”. Rituals refer to specific beliefs or rites and involve attitudes, “actions and activities which either tend to harmonize or contact with natural forces and invisible creatures or to soothe them” (Khojastea and Kalantarib 2009, p. 293). Rituals can be classified into two categories: (1) “religious rituals and rites” and (2) “non-religious rituals and rites” (Khojastea and Kalantarib 2009, p. 295). Religious rituals can be divided into two classes: mandatory rituals13 and rites14 and, optionally15, religious rituals and rites. Moreover, regardless of the type of religious rituals, they are institutionally ratified. According to Arens (2003), a ritual “is a standardized, repetitive activity carried out for the purpose of expressing and communicating basic cultural ideals and symbols” (Arens 2003, p. 81). Most of the online religious rituals are confined around “altars, statuary, or sacred writings” (Arens 2003). In the online space, not only people but also religious institutions are being obligated to adapt and change their traditional forms of connection, hierarchy, and “religious identity presentation as these practices are transported online” (Campbell 2016, p. 15).

Religious and non-religious spiritual groups mediate ontological and physical divisions and achieve a sense of presence in vertical and horizontal ways by utilizing diverse aesthetic, material, and psycho-physiological strategies. The vertical element refers “to the presence” of the divine, while the horizontal aspect involves “the presence of fellow practitioners, worshipers”, and sympathizers (Lorea et al. 2022). Such consciousness creates social cohesiveness and a sense of identity while serving as the foundation for the performance of powerful rituals and the encounter with remarkable states. Therefore, it is important to watch how religious and spiritual communities “negotiate presence and distance” as they establish new networks in a “sanitized sacred” space while being bound by regulations that can be incompatible with their liturgies and cosmologies.

However, it is worth emphasizing that issues such as understanding and using the sacred in the media are also noticeable outside the pandemic, for instance, in the matter of religious advertising or the relationship between the profane and the sacred in the globalization era (Krzystof 2014, 2020; Damian 2021).

How have ritual events, ceremonies, and displays been “(re)mediated” in these epidemic times to help religious adherents strike a delicate balance between “presence” and prudent “distance” (Lorea et al. 2022; Khojastea and Kalantarib 2009)? How did established religious involvement patterns, including “sensational forms” (Meyer 2009), develop as replicated, “(dis)embodied”, or “re-invented” (Lorea et al. 2022; Ameli 2009)? How did the relocation of followers from a communal setting to distant digital platforms create and redefine the religious experience?

3. Research Questions and Methods

3.1. The Conduct of the Research and Methods

The present research was conducted in a quantitative exploratory perspective, in a limited location and time framework, and took place in three phases. Firstly, discussions with Adventist pastors and Orthodox priests have permitted me to validate the dimensions of the questionnaire and the questions (January–May 2022). Secondly, the administration of the survey via email (May 2022). The main goal was to obtain data concerning the uses of digital technology during the COVID-19 pandemic in clerics activity and the religious life of believers. Thirdly, statistical analysis of data in Excel allowed me to have a relevant picture of digital uses during the pandemic.

For the creation and implementation of the survey dimensions, previous similar research from other preliminary studies was taken into consideration. I especially used as a reference16 the Recovira17 (Religious Communities in a Virtual Age) project. “This project will document, compare and analyze the ways in which members of religious communities have been changed in the wake of the profound social disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the core objective of the project is to understand the role of and turn to the digital in religious practices during the pandemic and afterwards”. Therefore, one of the objectives of the present study is to give the opportunity to correlate in future studies my results with the existing ones for European (international) comparisons and also for further analysis and research.

3.2. The Specificity of a Corpus: The SDAC Believers and Its Clergy

The corpus of this paper was composed of Romanian SDAC believers and pastors. This option was made for the following reasons: (1) the Romanian SDAC is the biggest Union in the Inter-European Division18; (2) the Romanian SDAC is constituted not only by parishioners but also by the rest of its institutions that Global SDAC holds (media institutions, health, education institutions, charitable, etc.); (3) the Romanian SDAC is located in an Orthodox country19; (4) the use of digital technology (Internet) is massive among the Adventist population because the use of Internet in Romania is wide used.20 Another choice was made in the corpus: it consists of respondents that are part of the ecclesiastical body (Romanian pastors and believers) from the “South England Conference”.21 They were selected as follows: pastors and believers who have access to the Internet, representing all ages of Romanian SDAC from urban and rural areas.

3.3. Survey Design

The questionnaire created for the present study contains thirty-one questions organized into six themes. These themes are as follows: church frequency, the use of digital technology during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to remain connected with religious services, the type of digital media used to stay connected to religious services, the kind of religious services with online participation, and the religious services that the respondents missed the most during the pandemic, and the perception of online performance in special circumstances of the Holy Supper.

The questionnaire was conceived using open and multiple choice questions to observe the following aspects: the frequency of using digital media during the pandemic and the purpose of using digital media in order to stay connected with spiritual activities. Also, the survey tried to observe the aspect of using virtual space as a manner to attend religious services (watching sermons, religious programs, etc.). At the same time, the survey has aimed to establish whether digital media is encouraging or discouraging physical attendance of religious services and if, in special circumstances, the digital media could be a suitable option for the practice of the Lord’s Supper or other significant rituals.

4. Findings

4.1. Demographic Highlights

Of the 92 respondents, 45.6% are between 24 and 44 years old, 31.5% are above 45 years old, and 77.2% have superior education; the rest, 22.8%, have secondary education. The large majority (77.2%) of the respondents reside in the urban area, while the rest, 22.8%, reside in the rural area. A total of 62% of the respondents have Romania as their country of residence, 37% have the United Kingdom as their country of residence, and 1% have another country of residence. Of the 92 respondents, 64.1% are male, and 35.9% are female. Regarding their church status, 42.4% of the respondents are pastors, 44.6% are lay members, 3.3% are evangelists22, and the rest of 9.8% are part of the church’s leadership. Moreover, 55.4% of the respondents are part of the body from the “Muntenia Conference”23, 33.7% are part of the “South England Conference”24, 4.3% are from “Moldova Conference”, 3.3% are from “Romanian Union of the Seventh-day Adventist”, 2.2% are from “Banat Conference”, while the rest of 1.1% are from “Oltenia Conference”. Also, concerning the church membership, as expected25, the large majority of the respondents (95.7%) are baptized members, 2.2% are not baptized yet, and 2.2% are church’s sympathizers. Regarding church attendance, 90.2% of the respondents attend church on a weekly basis (each Sabbath), while the rest of the 9.8% of the respondents rarely attend church (several times a month).

4.2. Survey Results

As expected, Internet usage is very common among the group: 100% of the respondents use the Internet on a daily basis. The most digital devices used by the respondents to navigate on the Internet are smartphones 76.1%, laptop 17.4%, computer 3.3%, and smart TV 2.2%, while a tablet is used by just 1.1% of the respondents. Regarding social media accounts, YouTube is the most common platform (for 46.7% of the respondents), followed by Facebook (44.6%), Instagram (3.3%), TikTok (3.3%); platforms such as Linkedin and Twitter are used by 1.1% equally.

When the respondents were asked if the local church has held religious services online during the COVID-19 pandemic, 91.3% said yes, while 8.7% answered no. The present survey also followed how often the local churches had online religious services during the pandemic. Thus, 76.1% of the respondents reported that their local church had online religious services once a week (just on Sabbath), 21.7% of the respondents declared that the local church broadcasted twice a week, while the rest of the 2.2% mentioned online religious services on a daily basis. A total of 79.4% of the respondents mentioned that religious services were broadcast live, 12% of the respondents indicated that they watched recorded religious services, and 8.7% reported that their local churches did not stream any religious services online.

In order to remain connected to the religious life of their communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, the group of respondents mainly watched the 11–12 sermon26, followed by evangelistic programs, theological debates, and religious concerts (as can be seen in Figure 1).

Most of the respondents (84.8%) attended online religious services during the pandemic, while 15.2% did not have the opportunity to attend online religious services. Most of the respondents (77.2%) used the Zoom platform for attending religious services, while the remaining 21.7% used other platforms. Besides the sermon at 11–12, another important religious service for Seventh-day Adventists is the Sabbath School. Ted NC Wilson, the president of the General Conference (the highest body of the Seventh-day Adventist Church worldwide), states the following about the Sabbath School:

“Sabbath School is one of the most important parts of Sabbath. It gives us the opportunity for fellowship, mission understanding, outreach and one of the greatest parts, Bible study and discussion. What a privilege to be able to study our Bible and the Adult Bible Study Guide in a small group setting and make the wonderful biblical instructions practical for our spiritual experience the next week. No one should miss Sabbath School!”27

Thus, to the question, “what kind of divine services were the ones you participated in online?”, 40.2% of respondents answered “Sabbath School”28, 30.4% participated in “Prayer Group”, and 28% participated in other online religious services (Figure 2).

Regarding which religious services the respondents missed the most during the pandemic, 65.2% of the respondents answered that all the divine services take place during the Sabbath. Also, 14.1% of the respondents said that they missed the potlucks, 12% missed the Sabbath School, and 7.6% missed the Lord’s Supper. However, the most affected religious services were declared as follows:

• A total of 69.6% of the respondents considered that the liturgical act of the Lord’s Supper suffered the most during the pandemic;
• A total of 21.7% of the respondents said that the liturgical act of Baptism suffered the most during the pandemic;
• A total of 8.7% of the respondents mentioned the funeral ritual.

The pastoral activity is the most important activity in the Church. In the pastoral activity, there are several main tasks like scripture preaching, performing baptisms and the Lord’s Supper, etc. Therefore, it was important to this survey to observe from the Adventist pastors’ perspective the main pastoral activities that they missed the most during the pandemic. Surprisingly, none of the pastors mentioned preaching or performing the liturgical rituals of the Holy Supper or baptism. Instead, 41.3% mentioned that they missed missionary work, 40.2% missed visiting members at home, and 18.5% missed visiting members at the hospital (Figure 3). Another aspect of this survey is focusing on the pastors’ way to keep in touch with their parishioners during the pandemic. Most of the pastors have had spiritual conversations with their parishioners through online channels. However, the survey revealed that the most used technological means are:

• Telephone, 41.3%;
• WhatsApp, 31.5%;
• Church’s Facebook official page, 7.6% (Figure 4).

Regarding the lay members and the technological means used to keep in touch with their local pastor, the results are pretty similar. Thus, 47.8% of the lay members used the mobile, while 17.4% used WhatsApp. However, 8.7% of the lay members respondents have used email (Figure 5) to stay in touch with their pastor during the pandemic. Also, this survey observed which administrative structure of the SDAC communicated most often with lay members during the pandemic. In this survey, I was also interested in seeing if the virtual space has, and in what way, affected the way faith is practiced. According to the survey, around 57.6% of the group find that social media (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, etc.) are useful in keeping up the spiritual motivation of believers during the pandemic (Figure 6). Although all the respondents have access to the Internet, most of them use it daily for different tasks and for various purposes. I was interested in finding out whether virtual space is perceived to be helpful in spiritual life during the pandemic as a messianic tool. A total of 51.1% of the respondents consider that broadcasting online religious services discourages the physical presence of believers in the church, while 48.9% consider that broadcasting online religious services encourages believers to attend offline (Figure 7). However, the results seem to show, once again, how undervalued the Internet still is in maintaining open and direct communication between clerics and believers, even during the pandemic. In order to stay informed on the current religious activity of the Adventist community and church within their own country but also from the diaspora, the respondents frequently make use of the Adventist official Facebook page (25%), local church’s WhatsApp groups (28.3%), followed by official church’s websites (20.7%), and other sources (21.7%) (Figure 8).

Therefore, according to the Figure 9, the SDAC administrative structure which communicated the most often are:

• Local church, 82.6%;
• Regional Conference, 12%;
• Romanian SDAC Union, 5.4%.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Adventist spiritual message was often broadcast through online platforms. However, I was interested in seeing if other pastoral activities, such as the Lord’s Supper, can be performed using Internet media. Thus, to the question, “Do you consider that in special circumstances such as those caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, certain acts of worship such as Lord’s Supper can also be practices online?”, the survey revealed the following results:

• A categorical no was addressed by 64.1% of respondents;
• A total of 10.9% of respondents said yes;
• A total of 25% of respondents have commented that cultural and theological reasons must be carefully analyzed (Figure 10).

5. Discussion

5.1. The Impact of the Pandemic Concepts on Online and Offline Religious Rituals

Media scholars suggest making a difference between “religion online” and “online religion” (Ameli 2009). “Religion online” refers to some kind of religion in virtual space, which provides a specific kit of information about religion in the virtual world “in order to be used by the users”. The concept of “online religion”, is related to a state in which a person performs “his or her own religious rites in virtual space” (Ameli 2009, p. 214). Therefore, religion in the virtual space has the possibility to bring all sorts of religious experiences from the “real world into the virtual world”. Regarding the relationship between media and religion, Stout (2012) operates with several key terms: (1) “cultural religion: religious practices that center in the media of popular culture (e.g., movies, novels, television programs, etc.); (2) culture war: societal discourse that is forever in conflict; argumentation that has no goal of resolution; (3) denomination religion: religious practices associated with established institutions such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.; (4) dualism: the assumption that a phenomenon can only be explained in one of two ways; (5) mediated religion: those religious experiences aided by some form of information technology; etc.” (Stout 2012, p. 8).

However, the massive movement of religious services going online during the pandemic has produced a shift in the meaning of specific concepts. For instance, decades ago, the diaspora concept was specifically referring to those ethnic communities geographically scattered all over the world. At present, according to some scholars, we have a new way of understanding the diaspora concept. National lockdowns and the periods of quarantine gave birth to new forms of “diasporic displacement” (Lehto 2020; Utsa 2022). During the pandemic, many religious groups “became akin to diasporas, scattered and separated from their place of gathering” (Lorea et al. 2022, p. 181). Furthermore, they try to observe pandemic ways of “religiosity and ritual innovation” (Lorea et al. 2022). Numerous religious practitioners have experienced somehow “a diasporic consciousness”. Moreover, regarding the use of digital technology, it is interesting “how diasporic and migrant religious communities pioneered trends and modalities of ritual reconfiguration that have mainstream during COVID-19” (Lorea et al. 2022). Therefore, we can refer to “migrant and diasporic ways of negotiating the presence of sacredness and community while staying at a distance from” traditional places of worship (Lorea et al. 2022).

5.2. Characteristics of Worship in the Seventh-Day Adventist Church and in the Orthodox Church

In the last decades, there have been many debates on the changing nature of the Internet, with various prognostications about how it would change all aspects of life, including the way we practice religion (Campbell 2016, p. 60; 2020). Virtual space is a source with diverse possibilities for individuals to interact inside and outside the church, “do ministry, evangelize, and even structure worship” (Campbell 2016). Campbell (2016) consider that in spite of the unique modalities of digital media in conducting church services, which integrates digital media “into a worship service or religious education does not necessarily mean that Christian practice is completely transformed”. Moreover, scholars who study religious practice online, a domain that is known as “Digital Religion Studies, came with the observation of the manner in which individuals use the internet for religious reasons rather than reveal “wider trends in how religious practice is seen and manifested in broader offline contexts” (Campbell 2016, p. 60).

Thus, in this section of the research, I briefly present how the Seventh-day Adventists and the Orthodox Church understand their ministry and worship and how they use the Internet for religious purposes.

5.2.1. Ritual and Adventist Worship

The worship rituals of the Seventh-day Adventist Church can be classified into five elements: (1) sacred time; (2) sacred space; (3) rites and ceremonies; (4) worship and devotion in daily life; (5) symbolism. Seventh-day Adventists believe in the imminence of the Second Coming of Christ. They proclaim it by keeping the Sabbath day of rest and worship on the seventh day (or Saturday) as a way to prepare for Jesus’ return. Seventh-day Adventists worship in prayer house buildings. Church buildings are not considered sacred in themselves. But only the ceremony that takes place invoking the name of Jesus. The time and place are considered holy as long as the divine services are in progress. Thus, when the divine services are over, the building remains just a simple building. According to the neo-Protestant perspective on holiness, the time and place can be considered sacred anywhere God’s presence is invoked. Therefore, this kind of perception of the sacred and profane made these churches to be more flexible in relation to new media technologies. The virtual environment was adopted very quickly in promoting the mission of the church.

The Saturday service starts with the Sabbath School and is followed by a gathering for a sermon, singing, scripture reading, and prayer. They gather on Saturdays, the Sabbath, for worship and teaching. Adventists practice adult baptism by immersion and share the Lord’s Supper quarterly. They perform a foot-washing ceremony before communion, following the gospel of John 13. Also, the Adventists are popular for their commitment to good health. “The logo of the Seventh-day Adventist Church features an open Bible at its foundation. A cross rises out of it, and the cross is surrounded by the burning flame of the Holy Spirit.”29

Seventh-day Adventist churches “follows in the free church tradition of worship and, aside from its distinctive Sabbath observance, is similar to that of many other evangelical churches. During the last two decades, Adventist leadership has supported serious efforts at worship in the form of creative worship. Elements of drama, choral reading, extended congregational singing (with emphasis on praising),” and the use of digital technology. The Adventist Church in Romania has a rich history in the use of technological means. In 1884, the Adventist press appeared on Romanian territory. A history with its ups and downs. However, after the fall of the communist regime in 1989, there was an explosion of liberties of all kinds in Romania in all fields, especially in media. Therefore, the media competence within the Romanian Seventh-day Adventist church was enriched in 2007 when it officially launched Speranta TV, a satellite of Hope Channel. Hope Channel is a Christian television network with 46 channels around the world, broadcasting in 57 languages. Also, Radio Vocea Sperantei has been operating and broadcasting for 30 years. At the same time, the convergence of all technological means represented a great creative step in the use of technology. However, at least in Romania, baptism and the Lord’s Supper are not accepted as taking place online.

5.2.2. Ritual and Orthodox Worship

The Holy Liturgy is the most important service of the Orthodox Church, the center of religious worship and Orthodox Christian life. For Orthodox Christians, it represents the memorial of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Holy Liturgy represents the most important service of the Orthodox Church, performed in a series of holy prayers. The order of the Holy Liturgy can be divided into two large parts: The Liturgy of the Word and the Eucharistic Liturgy. The Liturgy of the Word has the Word of God at its center; therefore, in this part, the readings from the Apostle and the Gospel take place. In it, the faithful are prepared for the most important part of the Holy Liturgy, the Eucharistic Liturgy. The Eucharistic Liturgy is centered on transforming the gifts of bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus. It includes the giving of gifts (going out with gifts). The Holy Liturgy can only be performed in the church or in consecrated chapels. As a result, during the COVID-19 pandemic, there were many discussions on social media and in the public space related to celebrating the Eucharist online. Orthodox worship also includes the worship of icons and relics, services sung by priests, etc. In general, the Romanian Orthodox Church has a positive openness towards the use of technological means and the online environment. However, there are limits regarding what can be transmitted online and what cannot.

For instance, the Romanian Orthodox Church argues for the purpose for which Trinitas TV was founded: “Participation in Mass is not completed without the visual component. Liturgical rites, painted churches, aesthetic objects used in liturgy, all require a visual reflection of religious event in the Orthodox Church, which can be achieved only through television. Specifically, we have to remember that we received numerous requests from believers in cities as well as in villages to establish a church-led TV station that would make liturgy much more accessible to the sick, bedridden or elderly people.”30 This is true for the Orthodox Church as well as for the Catholic Church, where the accent in liturgy is put on the entire visual religious grandeur. In the case of the neo-Protestant Christian religions, the focus during the liturgy is based on the preacher’s sermon, i.e., on content. Preaching the Word of God is the main ritual, even if not in a sacramental way, but significant nonetheless.

5.3. The Religious Practices of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church and of the Romanian Orthodox Church during the COVID-19 Pandemic

In this section, I comparatively analyze different situations and reactions of Adventist and Orthodox clergy during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the case of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, the situations encountered contribute to an even better understanding of the answers that the respondents gave to the survey. On the other hand, even if Orthodox clerics and believers are not part of the survey, the numerous situations and public statements of the Orthodox clerics support the comparative analysis of this work.

His Holiness Father Teofan (2021), archbishop of Moldova and Bucovina, addressed spiritual letters during the pandemic to the Orthodox believers who stayed at home. He has declared that the pandemic has provided an opportunity to transform one’s own home into the church: “Many times, our homes become places where the television reigns, other thoughts and other concerns, but now, perhaps not wanting this, we are obliged to build holy altars in our homes, to keep the candle lit permanently, transforming them in extensions of our holy churches” (Teofan 2021, p. 13). He indicates three steps by which the Orthodox believer can transform his house into a church. First of all, through the visible form: icons, lit candles, candles, the Psalter, “Ceaslovul”, and the Holy Scripture opened, the believer fed more and more from the word of God during this period. Secondly, the home of a believer becomes the Church if prayer reigns in it. The atmosphere in the Church can be transferred to your own homes through Psalms, Akathisias, and the Chapel of the Virgin Mary. Thirdly, the house of a believer becomes the church if those who live together have Christian behavior. Father Teofan says that the wife must see in her husband a member of the universal priesthood, a priest of the God Almighty, because, through baptism, Orthodox Christians become members of the universal priesthood.

Beyond the specific characteristics of the Orthodox dogma related to the liturgical practice, I notice two aspects in those mentioned by Father Teofan. The first aspect is related to the concept of transforming one’s own house into a church. The concept is better known in neo-Protestant churches as “the church in your house”. The neo-Protestant environment is much more familiar with such liturgical perspectives that are not necessarily a transfer from the church itself to the private atmosphere at home. The second aspect is related to the concept of the universal priesthood of all believers. Also, this concept represents a fundamental dogma in neo-Protestant theology. It is important to note that the two concepts, “the church in your home” and “universal priesthood”, are the elements that kept the communities of believers connected to the liturgical life during the pandemic both in the neo-Protestant Christian environment but especially in the Orthodox Christian one.

Another concept that surfaced during the pandemic is the idea of “sanitized sacred”. In the context of physical distance and online “compresence”, the concept refers to the ritual performers and audience, which both have experienced various forms of alienation, deprivation, and worries about ritual efficiency and legitimacy. An example of “sanitized sacred” during the COVID-19 pandemic in Romania was the polemic in the Orthodox Church regarding the use of the same spoon for the Eucharist. The restrictive measures regarding public gatherings pushed the ecclesial body to look for new forms of communication through which to keep the community active and connected, at least informally, to liturgical life. The number of churches making live broadcasts on Facebook exploded, creating something like a “liturgical resistance”. Religious activity groups were created on WhatsApp, and the number of catechesis podcasts uploaded to YouTube also increased significantly. On the other hand, if the idea of some recommendations regarding the behavior of believers during the pandemic in liturgical spaces is a natural reaction and logical one, the content of these recommendations was found to be totally inappropriate and even against the theology of the Romanian Orthodox Church, starting a real storm of posts and comments on social networks, but also in the print media. The press release of the Romanian Orthodox Church31 suggested unusual liturgical behavior for the Orthodox believers: (a) online participation in holy services; (b) believers were allowed to bring a personal spoon for Eucharist32 (extra-liturgical spoon); (c) avoiding kissing holy icons; (d) concession of Eucharistic surrogates (Vanca 2020).

Some orthodox priests tried to find theological justifications for the proposed solutions, and others rushed into new ways of administering the Eucharist. The social networks were on fire, and groups were lined up for and against the “unhygienic spoon” (Vanca 2020, p. 282). In the Orthodox Church, the debate on the use of a unique spoon when administering the Eucharist is not new: there have also been objectors inside the church against the use of a unique spoon and also against restrictive measures in the past plagues. However, what bothered the Orthodox environment during the COVID-19 pandemic was the content of the Patriarchate’s recommendations, which gave the feeling of trivialization of faith (Vanca 2020, pp. 283–84). Vanca (2020) indicates that administering the Eucharist with a spoon is not a matter of doctrine, but one of liturgical practice, and the practice changes over time depending on the internal realities of the church. In the past, Orthodox Christians received the Eucharist directly in the palm and sipped ordinary glass.

However, in the Orthodox Church (and some of the Eastern churches), a teaspoon is used. All of these gestures were perceived by militant Orthodox groups as diminishing the spiritual significance of liturgical practice. A matter that would have passed maybe unnoticed in calmer times ended up being the key to resistance in the face of secularization. For instance, The Orthodox believers, especially rural Orthodox, were insufficiently prepared to accept such changes—online liturgy and the reshaping of the Eucharist. Bratosin and Tudor (2018) indicate that the emergence of Romania’s religious media is not necessarily the intent of religious organizations to propagate faith but rather “to control the communication of religious information” (Bratosin and Tudor 2018, p. 241). This can be explained through the fact that secular media (commercial and public television) is perceived as diluted information, an “incomplete communication” because of “sensationalism, aggressive information, and trivial contents determined by the policies of the media owners, manager-journalists or star journalists” (Bratosin and Tudor 2018). In this context, the confessional TVs (TrinitasTV and SperantaTV) with an educational, spiritual, and cultural mission appear as an alternative to the secular commercial and public networks.

The last significant term that I want to mention is “phygital”. Regarding digital religion, the term “phygital” has significance because it combines dimensions that happen both “physically and online”. For example, if an online Eucharist33 or Holly Supper34 is performed, it is a “phygital” act. While the broadcasting of the priest’s or ordained pastor’s Eucharistic performance “could be visually enjoyed by audiences” of believers, “the impossibility to mediate online the consumption of” bread and wine35 leads to another kind of mediation: “the home-delivery” of blessed food and sacraments or self-serving them in front of the digital devices camera.

In Romania, on 14 April 2020, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Romanian Orthodox Church signed an agreement regarding the Easter events. The agreement included the distribution of blessed bread to the Orthodox believers and the holy light from Jerusalem.36 Thus, it was decided that the blessed bread would be distributed to the Orthodox believers on Friday and Saturday between 07:00 am and 05:00 pm in all parishes. The Orthodox believers had to carry the declaration on their own responsibility, in which they should specify the name of the church they were going to. Instead, things were completely different regarding the Holy Light. The Holy Light reached the quarantined areas with the help of the MIA staff, from the episcopal centers to the parishes in the respective areas. On the night of the Resurrection, the circulation of all the Orthodox priests who distributed the Holy Light in the houses of the faithful, as well as the volunteers, was allowed. The agreement indicates that: “believers can go out in the vicinity of the house, outside the courtyard of the building where they live, respecting the rules of social distancing, so as to avoid crowding and the formation of groups larger than three people. In this sense, two or three tenants from—a flat building can offer the Holy Light received by volunteers to all neighbours”.37

Moreover, police crews on public roads or at border points were able to offer the Holy Light to people in traffic. Also, the cadres, under the coordination of the MIA, on mission on Easter night, distributed the Holy Light including to hospitals, social centers, and quarantine centers. The voluntary action on the night of the Resurrection, with the occasion of the Orthodox Easter, represents a different kind of mediatisation of the religious ritual. This action can be considered as a “semi-phygital” act performed by the volunteers participating in the distribution of the Holy Light as well as the blessed bread (Easter). On the other hand, this is not an unusual agreement. This kind of collaboration between “religion and military” is called “muscular bonding” (Bellah 2003; McNeill 1995). The agreement between church and state under special circumstances creates “social cohesion, reinforce citizenship, and consolidate group solidarity by altering human feelings” (Bellah 2003, p. 42). Durkheim (1995) thought that “through experience of collective effervescence, not only was society reaffirmed, but new, sometimes radically new, social innovations were made possible” (Bellah 2003, p. 36; Durkheim 1995).

But, the agreement between ROC and MIA was not well received by all Orthodox clerics. For instance, Teodosie, the Archbishop of Tomis, organized a second Resurrection. On the night of 26–27 May 2020, he performed a ritual similar to the one on Easter night. At the same time, Archbishop Theodosius claimed that he would offer the Eucharist to those who wished. During the pandemic, due to social distancing and sanitary measures, the Romanian Orthodox Church decided to postpone the Eucharist for a short period of time. Archbishop Teodosie claimed that he could not delay the faithful in offering the Eucharist. The reason is that at every liturgy, the Eucharist is also offered, and the liturgy is not made for people to stay away.38 The faithful must go to the church to receive the light and not the other way around. Mircea Eliade (2000) shows that we cannot neglect the effects of the religious ritual framed into sacred times and sacred places important for all religions. In his analyses, Eliade comes to the conclusion that in almost all myths of origins, supernatural power is invoked to differentiate spaces (Eliade 2000, 2005). Petrof (2016) points out that “the social order is maintained by the differentiation of spaces” (Petrof 2016, p. 116; Ernst 1953). In other words, people always will look to limit the sacred in space (temples, churches, etc.), time (Sunday, Saturday, holy days, etc.), objects (clothes, cult instruments), people (priests, kings, shamans), etc. The Archdiocese of Tomis states that the decision to repeat the Resurrection comes as a result of the faithful’s unfulfilled wishes to bring the light home from the church. In other words, the decision to repeat the Resurrection service is to “repair a shortcoming”.39 According to Eliade, as long as the sacred space and the profane space are delimited and each object, participant, ritual, building, or place is limited to those spaces, on the basis of this delimitation able to generate equilibrium, then communication is possible; not only between sacred and profane through precise, ritualized rules, but social communication in general, because “religion primarily intends to protect the profane space against the power of the sacred, but also to open a ritualized access to this power. In this respect, we can say that religion is the administration of the sacred” (Eliade 2000, p. 136; 2013).

However, the reaction of the Romanian Orthodox Church to the decision of the Archbishopric of Tomis to repeat the Easter service was that the decision was assumed entirely, but exclusively, by the hierarch Teodosie. The spokesperson of the Romanian Patriarchate, Vasile Banescu, emphasized the fact that “the real service of the Resurrection of the Lord this year was celebrated in all the churches of the Romanian Patriarchate on Easter night”.40 On the other hand, the spokesman of the Archdiocese of Tomis, Eugen Tanasescu, claimed that “Easter is not being repeated”, but it is about the “Odovania service—a farewell service, the greeting part from the end of Resurrection celebration”.41

A similar case to the one in the Archdiocese of Tomis happened in the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Transylvania Conference.42 Similar not in the sense of repeating the Easter service, but similar in the violation of social distancing restrictions and church decisions during the pandemic. Pastor Iacob Coman43 officiated the divine service of the Holy Supper44 in one of the churches in his district45 during the pandemic when the believers’ access to public collective religious services was strictly prohibited under the pandemic regulations. The argument used by pastor Iacob Coman for violating the church’s restrictions and decision is similar to that of Archbishop Teodosie. Pastor Iacob Coman argued that in his capacity as a pastor who must serve his community, he cannot postpone the serving of the Lord’s Supper.

However, what makes the difference between Archbishop Teodosie and pastor Iacob Coman is the different visions of the ROC and SDAC on how often they perform the ritual of Eucharist or Holy Supper. In the Orthodox church, the Eucharist takes place every Sunday and is defined as the salvation of the believer. That is why, for a practicing Orthodox believer, interrupting the Eucharist, not taking and adapting it46, creates anxiety. On the other hand, in the Seventh-day Adventist church, the Holy Supper takes place quarterly47, which is once every three months. Perhaps for this reason, some Adventist believers were unprepared to not partake at all of the Lord’s Supper for a period of time due to the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic. In other words, they were waiting impatiently for a quarter anyway. “Religious ritual has a strong tendency toward periodicity—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam require weekly worship—and yearly liturgical calendars are widespread” (Bellah 2003, p. 41). Talal Asad (1993) states that sacraments “are known to have been instituted for three reasons: On account of humiliation, on account of instruction, on account of exercise” (Asad 1993, p. 78). Thus, periodicity is specific to ritual for a large “variety of types ranging from the most secular, or even trivial, to the most solemn and religious” (Bellah 2003, p. 41). At the same time, in the liturgical practice of the Seventh-day Adventist church, there is no theological concern if, in certain circumstances, the faithful are deprived of the Holy Supper for a long period of time. Consequently, as a result of the violation of the restrictions imposed by the state authorities48 and the violation of the decisions of the church authority49, pastor Iacob Coman was put under discipline by the management of the South Transylvania Conference. Thus, Pastor Iacob Coman’s pastoral rights to officiate baptisms, weddings, Holy Supper, or administrative gatherings50 were withdrawn for a period of 60 days.

The cases of Archbishop Teodosie and pastor Iacob Coman show the paradox solution of the tensions between traditional religious leaders and religious online groups. The flexible nature of religious groups and identity online has led to a “conflict” between traditional religious leaders and what appeared like a new form of religious authorities online. In order to gain equilibrium with regard to their positions and influence in a digital era, religious organizations “are increasingly learning to leverage social media to build their influence and harness the power of the web to display their expert knowledge online” (Campbell 2016, p. 73). That is why digital technology is perceived at the same time as a threat and as a tool of “empowerment for religious authority”. This paradox was called the concept of shifting authority. This concept also emphasizes how digital media “raise questions of who or what determines the boundaries of acceptable religious practice in the internet age” (Campbell 2016).

At the same time, the virtual world is a space where “renegotiations” happen over what represents a legal, religious leader or monopoly of knowledge. The online space allows individuals to “transgress established religious structures” by assuming private debates usually reserved for organizational administrators or leaders. Therefore, this institutional problem quickly became a topic of public debate on social networks. In a very short time, support pages for pastor Iacob Coman appeared on social networks (Facebook, YouTube, Blogs, etc.).51 For example, Florin Laiu, one of the most popular theologians of the church, created a petition on his blog52 urging all those who, for various reasons, do not support the statements of Iacob Coman to sign it. The petition is entitled “alongside a new Iacob Coman” and encourages both sides to dialogue. However, beyond the controversy for or against him, pastor Iacob Coman53 considered himself unfairly punished by the Adventist church for violating the pandemic restrictions by performing the liturgical act of the Holy Supper for his church. Iacob Coman is a very popular preacher in Romania, with thousands of followers on social media platforms. Therefore, Coman supported his case and other points of view through a series of video appearances on YouTube entitled “you have the right to know.”54 In social media culture, authority may be based on other characteristics of reputations like “number of likes on Facebook, followers on Twitter, link rankings on blogs”. In other words, this means that in digital media, the struggle about who is the legal voice for a specific community is changing in the digital era.

A full “phygital” act was performed by the Seventh-day Adventist pastors from London, the United Kingdom; while the Romanian Adventist churches in London waited55 for the restrictions to be lifted to enjoy the liturgical act of the Holy Supper, the English Adventist churches turned to digital technology to enjoy the Holy Supper in a new way. A few English Adventist churches took the Lord’s Supper via Zoom. This way of taking the Holy Supper involved several new aspects regarding this liturgical act: (1) at-home delivery of bread and wine by deacons56 so that they could be served by each believer at the time of the Lord’s Supper; (2) technological mediation of the liturgical act via Zoom; (3) the pastor and the elder no longer break bread together57; (4) the deacons can no longer serve the faithful participants with the blessed bread or wine58; (5) each believer serves themselves with the blessed bread and wine59; (6) in the absence of the specially prepared Holy Supper table60, the office table of each person participating on Zoom becomes the Holy Supper table; (7) the foot washing service takes place at home between family members or not at all where there are single people.61 There were also elements that remained unchanged in the liturgical act of the Holy Supper celebrated via Zoom: (1) sermon; (2) singing hymns; (3) the prayer of blessing the bread and the wine; (4) the final blessing prayer spoken by the pastor.

Eating together is one of the oldest rituals of humanity. Margaret Visser (1992) gave special attention to the “rituals of dinner”, because such occasion is what makes ritual significant. Thus, Visser notes:

“Table manners are social agreements; they are devised precisely because violence could so easily erupt at dinner. Eating is aggressive by nature and the implements required for it could quickly become weapons; table manners are, most basically, a system of taboos designed to ensure that violence remains out of the question. But intimations of greed and rage keep breaking in: Many mealtime superstitions, for example, point to the imminent death of one of the quests. Eating is performed by the individual, in his or her most personal interest; eating in company, however, necessarily places the individual face to face with the group. It is the group that insists on table manners; “they” will not accept a refusal to conform. The individual’s “personal interest” lied therefore not only in ensuring his or her bodily survival, but also in pleasing, placating, and not frightening or disgusting the other diners”.

(Visser 1992, p. xii–xiii; Bellah 2003, p. 41)

Visser emphasizes the aspects of individual interest and “group pressure”, which always makes part of a ritual. Additionally, the “ritual of dinner, in the sense of breaking bread together, implicitly, and often explicitly, has a religious dimension, as when there is a blessing before or after the meal” (Bellah 2003, p. 41). Moreover, Visser underlines that “ritual is not only a matter of occasional meeting and parting; it is very much part of the periodicity of life” (Bellah 2003, p. 40).

What is interesting to note is that some of the pastors who officiated the Holy Supper via Zoom were Romanians. This means that only Romanian churches did not want to use digital technology to participate in the religious service of the Holy Supper. This is explained by the rigorous traditionalism related to the non-alteration of religious services. This is a strictly cultural aspect, taking into account the Orthodox context from which most members of the Romanian Adventist churches come. Adventist churches in the diaspora differ from those in the country of origin. A major difference is created by cultural diversity because believers come from all areas of the country of origin, which creates much inflexibility in the religious dialogue. There was a perfect consensus regarding those religious services that are or are not suitable to be performed with the help of digital technology. This consensus reflects the 64.1% of respondents who answered with an “absolutely not” to the opportunity to attend the Lord’s Supper online in any circumstances. Only 10.9% of the respondents were open to this possibility, while 25% considered that theological and cultural implications must be carefully analyzed. The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Romania, but also at the global level, has a rich history and experience in using technological means to spread the Adventist message. However, there are no precedents regarding the use of digital technology for religious rituals such as baptism or the Holy Supper. Most of the respondents (85.9%) declared that the most frequent religious service streamed online during the pandemic was the “11–12 sermon”. Various studies on religious behavior in digital space have revealed that while online religious communities support new ways of gathering and new social behaviors, they usually act as an additional, not a replacement, for offline church involvement. For example, it is possible for people to join an online community to fill certain relational or informational needs, such as “in-depth Bible study or spiritual support, yet this involvement augments” and is a supplement, rather than a substitute for, a physical, offline worship experience. Thus, there is a close connection between online and offline communities.

The Adventists (the neo-Protestants generally) do not have any liturgical objects, images, paintings, etc., which could form an aesthetic ceremony because the most significant symbol is the Bible itself. Thus, for web believers, the religious programs broadcasted through social media during the pandemic are, in fact, the same as those that take place in real spaces. However, a clear line has been drawn between the preaching of the message by any means and the religious ritual that cannot be reproduced by any technological medium. Adventist religious rituals are very few: weddings, baptisms, and the Holy Supper. In fact, these are the only rituals that involve specific visual aspects.62 Beyond the visual aspect of these rituals, they involve respecting the way in which they may or may not be performed.63 One representative characteristic of ritual is performance. Performance implies “the sense of what is called in the philosophy of language performative speech: Something is not simply described or symbolized, but done, enacted” (Bellah 2003, p. 38; Rappaport 1999, p. 37). This implies trust. The simple act of “participating in serious rituals” involves “a commitment with respect to future action, at the very least solidarity with one’s fellow communicants” (Rappaport 1999, p. 38). Therefore, as Rappaport uses the concept, only participating in an automatic performance, where the performer “sheds the “role” as soon as the performance is over, and the audience, however, moved, goes away knowing it was “only a play”, it is not enough (Rappaport 1999). That is why “serious ritual performance has the capacity to transform not only the role but the personality of the participant” (Rappaport 1999).

Regarding the Romanian Orthodox Church, Dumitru Vanca (2020), the Orthodox priest and professor, explains the reasons why he made the personal decision to no longer broadcast religious services online during the pandemic. Thus, he indicates the following:

• Every priest knows that not everyone is allowed to enter the Altar. Why now anyone “can enter” to see up close the work of the priest, anyone can transmit the Liturgy. Telephones hung from crosses, and microphones were hidden behind vases of flowers or even leaning against the ark. We sacrifice everything for the best angle.
• Any tele-transmission exponentially dilutes the ineffable, the mysterious, “mysterium tremendum”.
• To have a somewhat positive effect, a tele-broadcasting requires adequate preparation of the priest, the pew, and the viewer (the believer); a bad sermon, an aphonic or phonate singer, and a believer sitting on an armchair is the most toxic mixture.
• I agree with a partial tele-transmission—only Liturgy of the Word—up to and including the sermon because the word of the Gospel must be preached by any means and in any environment.
• The Eucharistic Liturgy has no finality if it is not followed by the Holy Communion of the faithful. Then, why do we make a Liturgical theatre?
• The transmission of the Holy Liturgy (even only for a limited period of time) can inculcate the idea that real participation and participation online are the same, and over time, things can tragically turn around, or even worse.

Vanca’s observations underline the fact that for the Romanian Orthodox Church, the Holy Liturgy is not a show; it is not an informative-formative activity of the faithful but represents “the establishment of the Kingdom of God still in this world through the formation of the mystical body of Christ—the Church” (Vanca 2020, p. 286). For the Orthodox Christian, to be a believer means to take part in this body, “to eat the same food and drink the same spiritual drink that makes the believers “co-blood” with Christ” (Vanca 2020, p. 287). Dorothy Bass (1994) declares, “Living traditions are embodied in the social world in two related ways: Through practices and institutions where practices are sustained. Individuals can learn and participate in traditions only in the company of others; they do so by entering into practices and institutions through which particular social groups, versed in specific activities and gathered into specific organizations, bear traditions over time” (Bass 1994, p. 172). Religious practices “embedded within tradition reproduce religious memory, essential to its continuing hold upon consciousness. Shared faith and community sustain individuals” (Roof 2003, p. 145). However, “in unsettled times” like the COVID-19 pandemic, religious “memory becomes more problematic. Lacking a firm rooting within tradition, people devise new strategies of action, or ways of responding to the sacred. This can involve negotiation both with themselves and with others as to the meaning and practice of faith in a given life-situation. Or it may be more radical as with the conscious exploration of religious alternatives and recognition of the “merits of borrowing” symbols, beliefs, and practices from many sources” (Roof 2003, p. 145).

Vanca indicates very well the different understanding of the doctrine of the Eucharist in the case of neo-Protestant Christians. He indicates very well the fact that the neo-Protestant Christians did not have this problem of not physically participating in the Liturgy during the pandemic because their liturgical practice revolves around the biblical text. Vanca also believes that, in general terms, the word of the Gospel can be proclaimed through all the means of communication that God has allowed us to discover. He argues this point of view by showing that in their time, the apostles used not only oral preaching (as Christ did) but also the epistolary genre. They used writing, and most likely, if they lived in our era, they would also use television and the online environment.

Compliance with the sanitary measures imposed by the pandemic made the clergy and believers adapt their liturgical practice. This fact was considered by the conservative part of the church an abandonment of the old liturgical practices and a kind of functional apostasy meant to swell the ranks of the secularists. For Orthodox Christian believers, the religious ceremony presented online or on TV does not exclude the holiness of the visual liturgical objects or the liturgy process. Furthermore, the exposition of the holy dimensions into media stressed the significance of the liturgical form and religious symbols. However, the religious rituals performed through new media could be interpreted as a superficial manifestation of the ceremony because of the significance given to the real sacred place of worship. Also, this emphasizes the singularity of the sacred time and sacred place inside the physical church.

6. Conclusions

This survey has shown that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Internet and new media were used by both SDAC and ROC churches for specific religious services such as sharing spiritual messages and watching sermons. Both Adventist and Orthodox religious communities were preoccupied with maintaining the equilibrium between the church’s traditional hierarchies and authorities once religious rituals fell into the uncontrolled and chaotic environment of the virtual space.

It is recognized that the restrictions during the pandemic determined the strengthening of some parish communities through the use of modern means of communication: Facebook, WhatsApp, etc. This is considered an opportunity that the church must take advantage of. At the same time, there are major variations in new media that religious communities have embraced, starting from television, Facebook Live, YouTube, WhatsApp, Zoom, etc., “and all have their different affordances, limitations, privileged publics, and algorithms of access, that have been exploited in order to reproduce presence” (Lorea et al. 2022, p. 184; Meyer 2006, 2011).

However, religion online is still perceived by militant believers and religious authorities, involving the danger of making a “community of believers without any anchor in the physical embodiment of faith” (Lorea et al. 2022, p. 183). At the same time, online religious usages are infused with rather than separated from traditional religious patterns.