Virtualization of the church: problems and prospects

The article presents reflections on the inclusion of virtualization elements in religious practices and the value-based attitude of actors of the religious process to them. In the modern world, Internet users are a significant number of people who have completely different views on the spiritual nature of human existence. Extrapolating the percentage of believers to Internet users, we can assume that users who define themselves as believers constitute the majority. It can be assumed that the virtual environment is becoming today a vehicle for the propagation of religious worldview and culture as well as an environment for the spread of subcultures of various religious groups of believers having their own values, some of which may become internal values of the Internet space as an emerging virtual world, the so-called Internet universe. The possibility of the appearance of religious constructs that exist exclusively in a virtual environment makes it possible to talk about the emergence of new religious actions, values, structures that become virtual not only by name but also by the very fact of the place of existence. At the same time, the new environment will launch the processes of transformation of itself, during which it is possible to re-think the values introduced and reformat the initially created structures, which will entail the emergence of a new religious reality of virtual space and new virtual reality values formed in local religious Internet communities. The emergence of network resources that provide the opportunity to create, using programs and applications, a space intended to meet the religious needs of believers, has led to the emergence of virtual temples, virtual religious activities, and virtual participation of believers in this process. For some believers, this religious space becomes the only platform for expressing and realizing their religious feelings and needs, and in fact it becomes their new value.