The Religious Aspect of the Macedonian Society in the Condition of the Crisis Caused by Covid 19

Abstract

The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic has influenced all spheres of social life of the Republic of North Macedonia. Introduction of precautionary and restrictive measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus impacted on the religious life of citizens-believers. The attitudes of the religious communities towards these measures impacted the behavior of the believers, but also on the opinion and attitudes of the general public. In order to give a clear picture of the religious aspect of the Macedonian society, this paper is divided into two parts. The first part presents the action of the larger religious communities during conditions of the crisis caused by Covid 19. The second part presents public attitudes towards religious communities and the practice of religion after the outbreak of the pandemic. A qualitative analysis was applied in both cases, with the first part analyzing a multitude of public sources, the most common of which were online news and the second part is a thematic analysis of Twitter Platform, particularly the tweets in the period after the appearance and spread of the virus. After the summing up of the results, the impatience towards the religious needs of the believers was evident, as well as the strong criticism and condemnation of the religious communities, despite the fact that in their statements the communities mainly adhered to the government's decisions to deal with the crisis, and called on the believers to comply with the measures adopted in these decisions. Such intolerance and criticism towards religious communities is especially emphasized in the conversation on Twitter, where users are also advocating the introduction of punitive measures for believers who would attend religious ceremonies