Online közösség (?) : nyújthat-e a világháló működőképes túlélési stratégiát egy új vallási csoportnak? : egy kis magyar vaisnava közösség esete

In a world where the use of cyber space has become a part of everyday reality, when communities are continuously formed and maintained via the Internet regardless of the geographical location of their members, it can be interesting to scrutinize how the use of cyber space can contribute to the maintainance of a religious community. Can cyber space replace face-to-face interactions and the experience of performing common rituals? The small Krishna devotee group I’m researching has undergone different changes and a breakup in recent years and has become a loose gathering of individuals who rarely meet, even for ritual purposes. The devotees however consider themselves being part of the group. There are attempts to go virtual, especially to use Facebook as a means of online community forming. Could these attempts be regarded as successful surviving strategies or are they just the fingerprints of a disappearing religious group? The paper is inspired by symbolic and interpretative anthropology and some current theories concering Western Krishna devotees from the sociology of religion