Page - 175 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/01

In the Orality/Aurality of the Book | 175www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/1, 173–190 intangible qualities such as sound, odours and light, which while not per- ceived visually, still contribute to the phenomenal spatiality of the examined places, filling the spaces between tangible components.3 In unpacking the transformation of text into sound, I argue about a repositioning of personal and collective identity, from a more ethnic understanding to a more inclusive one, emerging during the religious activities. This is not the first time that social fields such as transnational religious places have been approached from the perspective of the constitution of identi- ty.4 People choose to participate in the activities of a religious institution in the hope of a more settled sense of belonging, which is connected to deep existen- tial quests and their inherited backgrounds. Since late 1990s, sociological schol- arship has emphasised the need for the “transtemporal” and “translocative” in the creation of new geographies through religion by migrants.5 In these geog- raphies, the locals and non-locals are interconnected in practices that re-enact identity, an identity that goes beyond the limits of the country in which they co-exist to reach the home countries of the migrants as well.6 Ethnographic research via interviews and observation and the study of archival material and secondary sources are combined here to further unfold these processes. The St Andrew’s community in Edinburgh was established in 1948 by the Polish priest John Sotnikov for a very small congregation, composed mainly of Polish soldiers from Stalin’s forces who had been demobilised in Britain at the end of the Second World War. Russians, Greeks and very few British were the yeast of today’s 200-strong congregation, who come from around thirty countries. Because of the differences in national and cultural backgrounds, language has become one of the key components for the establishment and development of the community. A series of literary transformative process- es has created a field of worshipping interactions between members of the parish in various spaces, many of which were not constructed for religious purposes. Translations, transliterations and musical transcriptions have been combined to produce the soundscape needed for a transnational community that while not unique, is also not what might be considered a “mainstream” Orthodox Christian congregation. In the St Andrew’s community, the minority 3 On aurality, atmosphere, ambience, attunement see Griffero 2014, Böhme 2018 and Pérez- Gómez 2016. 4 Levitt/Glick 2004. 5 Tweed 2009. 6 Levitt/Glick 2004, 1027.