Its Web site offers visitors an e-mail prayer service and requests received from Internet users around the world are printed out and posted in the cloister for monks to take to prayer with them. According to Brother Thomas, one of the site's developers, e-mail prayers are not a replacement for people's own prayer, but serve to involve the public in the everyday life of the monastery. So if they want to let us know what they want to pray for, then we feel they're participating in our life and we re participating in theirs. In addition, the Monastery of the Holy Cross is working to set up live streaming audio of their prayer services so that visitors to the Web site can follow along with the monks at home. All-Merciful Saviour's Father Tryphon says the church must embrace the Internet as simply another form of communication that is rapidly becoming central to the lives of many of its followers.
Communication is really important to spreading the Christian message.
The Internet is just another form of communication. Just like the printing press dramatically altered the church by making it possible for everyone to have an individual copy of the Bible, the Internet is also changing the way spirituality is expressed and experienced. The incorporation of different mediums, such as video, audio, photography, graphic design and multi-dimensional computer modeling makes the Internet a potentially revolutionary tool for the practice of religion. When you think of cathedrals and music and art, that's how the faith was expressed then. I think it will get left behind a little bit.