The article focuses on the media practices of the Russian‑speaking Orthodox Jews seeking patterns of observance relevant to secular modernity. The author applied the conceptual framework of “communicative figurations” for describing the process of everyday Torah observances in post‑Soviet countries, Israel, the USA, and West‑ ern Europe. The empirical research of media repertoires revealed that the members in the post‑Soviet Orthodox communities use Facebook and Instagram platforms to maintain closed women groups and rabbis’ blogs focused on observance.

Drawing upon a few “ask the priest” websites, this article studies the mediatization of pastoral care in the Russian Orthodox Church. The study is based upon the theory of mediatized worlds in the framework of social constructivism. Various forms of communication between the priest and the audience are analyzed, as well as the reasons why both sides choose the online communication.

This text presents theoretical premises of how to study the reception of media content by the religious audience. The author looks first at how media and mass communication scholarship developed along with the emergence of the media sphere as a technological and social phenomenon. One of the results of these developments is that, with‑ in the multiplicity of sources available, specifically religious channels and services, and channels and services that can accommodate religious and spiritual interests and uses, are increasingly possible and available.

When various media in their entirety mark how we articulate our social worlds, we need an approach of mediatization research that reflects this transmediality. To develop such an approach, the article first discusses the “institutionalist” and “social‑constructivist” traditions of mediatization research. Both traditions concur in their understanding of mediatization as being a concept to capture the interrelation between the change of media and communication on the one hand, and the change of culture and society on the other hand.

The text is a translation of the chapter by Stig Hjarvard from the edited volume “Media and Religion: The Nordic Perspectives”. Hjarvard develops a typology of the mediatized religion: (1) “religious media”, (2) “journalism on religion”, and (3) “banal religion”. While the first type corresponds in part to organized religion and may serve to project religious narratives into the public realm, the other two forms are driven primarily by various media considerations.