Religion Law and COVID-19 in Europe

<p><em>Religion Law and COVID-19 in Europe</em> 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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p></p><p><strong>Brian Conway</strong> is assistant professor of sociology at Maynooth University Ireland.</p><p><strong>Lene Kühle</strong> is professor in sociology of religion at Aarhus University Denmark.</p><p><strong>Francesco Alicino</strong> is professor in law and religion at LUM University Bari Italy.</p><p><strong>Gabriel Bîrsan</strong> is an independent scholar of the sociology of religion canon law and church-state relations.</p>