Which Limits of Virtual Religious Life? On the Experience of Holy in the Digital Age

In this article the possibility of an online Eucharist is assessed as a special case of virtual religious life and of a digital experience of the holy. More precisely, two types of arguments are given against the possibility of an online Eucharist—of a theological and of a phenomenological nature. While the theological argument highlights the shared and receptive dimension of the Eucharist, which makes possible its intrinsically communal and incarnated nature, the phenomenological argument shows that this receptive and shared dimension presupposes the materiality of the host, which in its turn makes possible the experience of its holiness, namely as that which cannot be profaned through bodily actions. Here Otto's and Eliade's opposition between the holy and the profane is revisited, whereby the holy is conceived not merely as the opposite of the profane, but as that which cannot be profaned, and as that which implies the prohibition of particular actions and bodily gestures that can be carried out only on a material object. Hence, materiality and holiness are intrinsically correlated following this understanding of the holy. Drawing on this reinterpretation of the concept of holy, it is argued that virtuality cannot preserve the materiality and consequently the holy dimension of the host, and for this reason, that it cannot preserve the receptive and shared dimension of the Eucharist. Hence, despite advances in digital technology, the Eucharist appears to be an insuperable limit of virtual religious life, at least in our contemporary world and its current digital possibilities.