Twelfth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society

Abstract

The research is focused on the relationship between the individual experience of the spiritual dimension and the community activities of religious practices. The proposal is based on the study of a set of community service practices carried out at the peak of the COVID19 pandemic, in a Jesuit Catholic church from one of Lima’s outskirts, Peru. The authors seek to show the social character of the religious phenomenon as stated in studies carried out from the perspective of historical anthropology from an evolutionary outlook. According to this line of thought, since the origin of the human species, religion is a behavior that remains deeply rooted in societies, due to the role it plays through practices of social cohesion. Despite social distancing, COVID19 has made it possible to show how important these spiritual practices are to achieve mental balance out of community cohesion, even though in an exceptional way through virtual support.