Abstract
The article analyzes the response of religious organizations to the COVID-19 pandemic. The coronavirus pandemic has had a significant impact on the global confessional community. Many churches and denominations have faced direct restrictions on their activities. The author concludes that in each country these restrictions are localized and feature varying degrees of flexibility, depending on the current situation. The reaction of confessions to the corresponding restrictions and lockdowns varies as well: from understanding and collaboration with the authorities to manifesting disobedience and deliberate violation of the lockdown regulations. The spread of the pneumotropic virus prompted religious organizations to widely implement new forms of communication with their followers. A current trend is a so-called "accelerated digitalization": communication of churches with the believers and of the latter among themselves through online technologies. This will undoubtedly make religious organizations to reconsider their established traditional forms of spiritual and cult activity going forward. Facing the crisis situation under the fight against the coronavirus, religious organizations were able to sacrifice the most important aspect: mass public worships, which are a basic life need for believers of any confession and religion. For most of them, this constraint became a test for their general strength since the absence of joint onsite worships means the disunity of members of religious communities, the termination of the activities of individual parishes, as well as the loss of part of their income. The religious organizations' involvement in countering the spread of the virus has shown that they are not archaic and are capable of responding to social challenges. For many of them, especially for the Orthodox ones, the crisis has posed an acute issue of developing new forms of the Christian mission and attracting the population to the church. In many countries, the pandemic has helped the development of an interfaith dialogue. The social changes caused by the coronavirus pandemic have exacerbated existing issues and accelerated the processes that have already been taking place in the internal church life.
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