Religion, Law, and COVID-19 in Europe : A Comparative Analysis

Abstract

Religion, Law, and COVID-19 in Europe investigates how the pandemic and the subsequent legal restrictions on collective activities influenced religious life in the region. The 19 in-depth country case studies combine legal and sociological analyses and reflect the plurality of religious and secular contexts. They detail how the pandemic curbed the collective aspects of religion and how the religious communities adapted, especially via innovations in online religion and new forms of religious leadership. The volume looks at how ordinary devotees’ religious behaviours changed during the pandemic and reveals shifts in religion–state interactions. In so doing, it shows how the pandemic challenged both religions and societies and how this was influenced by varying religious landscapes, political histories and legal cultures. More broadly, this volume makes three important contributions to the extant literature. First, it presents a novel analytical framing for making sense of how the COVID-19 pandemic affected religion. Second, it provides an empirical account of how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted religious groups across Europe. Third, it reveals the importance of sudden, large-scale events in understanding religious change in the modern world.