New Technologies in Pentecostal Funeral Rituals During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Brazil

During the coronavirus pandemic in Brazil, death rites were abbreviated. Hospital visits to the sick, collective farewell ceremonies, and coexistence with corpses were made impossible. In this article, by analyzing a Pentecostal funeral live stream that occurred in May 2020, I try to discuss the possibilities of ritual change in a context of exception. I conclude that the mediatization of funeral rites does not depend solely on the existence and access of the mourners to new technologies. The elements at play in these funerals occur in dialogue with symbolic contents—hierarchical, cosmological, doctrinal—and intersect with the properties of the new technologies, producing affectations in the form and content of the rites.