HOW ESSENTIAL IS RELIGION? MEANINGS AND PERCEPTIONS OF RELIGION DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN EUROPE

ABSTRACT: In Europe as elsewhere, the COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on all areas of life. In the religious field, it has underlined larger issues related to the status of religion and to religious freedom. While religious groups have widely adjusted to restrictions, even when it affected key religious practices, they often wondered how the significance of religious life was rated by secular authorities when the time came for gradually lifting restrictions and deciding which services were essential. Since the path of negotiations was mostly followed by main religious organizations, several legal actions for demanding the resumption of public worship or the permission for larger groups of faithful to gather were initiated by smaller groups or individuals. The issues at stake were related to the proportionality of restrictions on public worship, also in comparison of the way in which secular facilities were dealt with. The pandemic has once again made clear how religious freedom and freedom of worship are indivisible. What may also have worried religious groups is how health considerations sometimes seemed to lead states to attempt regulating the way into which worship itself is conducted. KEYWORDS: COVID-19, pandemic, Europe, freedom of worship, Christians, Muslims, religious practices, state and religio