Pandemic and Crisis of Church-State Relations

Abstract

The main objective of the article is to expand the problematic field of church historical research by including an analysis of the influence of external conditions generated by the secular environment (global systemic crisis) on the dynamics and quality of systemic processes within institutional churches in recent times. The systemic crisis, into which the world economy entered at the very beginning of the 21st century (the crisis of the growth model based on over-lending to the economy), combined with standard cyclical crises, produces serious social processes, in particular in the religious sphere. Economic instability in society affects the economic activities of religious institutions, stimulates age shifts (aging) and gender movements, and has a definite impact on such religious institutions as liturgical activity and the canonical system. In this context, any measures of state influence on religious institutions (in the specific case, pandemic restrictions) are perceived as attempts, if not persecution, then unjustified pressure. The internal resistance of traditionalist-oriented actors stimulates the development of the internal structural crisis of religious institutions.