Recent findings demonstrate a growing interest in religiosity during the COVID-19 pandemic and suggest that religiousness has a Janus-face impact on coping with stress.On the one hand,the empirical data indicates a positive link between religiosity and mental health,agreeableness,and higher emotion regulation skills.On the other side,some surveys describe religious people as being reluctant to follow the recommendation of public health experts,and they also tend to score lower on intelligence and analytic thinking measures.However,how religiosity in our country impacts psychological processes of perception and coping with stress during the pandemic is not studied yet.The research reveals religious views on the COVID-19 pandemic through the analysis of semi-structured interviews with believers from different Bulgarian religious communities—Orthodox Christians,Catholics,Protestants,and Muslims.The focus of the one religious interpretation is pandemic as retribution for the self-forgetfulness of a man and the consumerist attitude towards God’s creation.The main narrative in the other interpretation considers diseases and suffering that accompany human life as a natural consequence of original sin and perishable human nature.Both points of view relate to various coping methods with challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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