Apparitional Movements as Sites of Religious Experimentation

Bibliographic Data

ID20200230
AuthorsA Halemba (0000-0002-3900-4880, Agnieszka Halemba, Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw, Żurawia 4, 00-503 Warsaw, Poland. Email: [email protected], corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume21
Issue2
Pages43-58
Publication date2017-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNova Religio The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1092-6690 • E-ISSN: 1541-8480
PublisherProject MUSE (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1525/nr.2017.21.2.43
OpenAlexW2765467570
LanguageEN
Citations received2

Based on an analysis of existing literature on Marian apparitions and field research-based case study from contemporary Transcarpathian Ukraine, this article asserts that an interpretation of Marian apparitional movements as a form of acquiescence to the authoritarian and conservative vision of the Catholic Church is too simplistic. The Virgin Mary appears in moments of crisis that are often caused or exacerbated by conflicts, especially ecclesiastical ones and it is also true that the sites of apparitions often do give a voice to those critical of modern changes. However, they are not always instrumentalized in support of conservative ideas. To the contrary, Marian apparitions are often sites of religious experimentation and innovation. On the one hand the Church can be extremely skeptical of or even hostile to apparitional events, still on the other hand the Church makes use of them as places of religious modernization with an aim to revitalize religious adherence

Acquiescence · Aesthetics · Authoritarianism · Democracy · Epistemology · Linguistics · Modernization theory · Political science · Skepticism · Sociology · Law · Philosophy · Religious Tourism and Spaces · Sustainable Urban and Rural Development

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