Worshipping with the coronavirus
Some churches worldwide close but other large congregations continue to gather
Russian Orthodox parishioners gather at the Kazansky Cathedral in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Sunday Associated Press/Photo by Dmitri Lovetsky
ISRAEL: Not since the Black Plague has Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the site where Jesus is believed to have been buried and resurrected, been closed indefinitely. The coronavirus has shuttered Jewish, Christian, and Muslim holy sites throughout the Old City.
Millions of Christians tuned in to online services on Sunday, but around the world, parishioners and clergy crowded into churches, too, flouting bans on large gatherings—a practice Rick Warren called “dumb” and “un-Biblical.” Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow for the first time on Sunday advised parishioners to stay home, but most churches continued with services anyway, including his own. A prominent bishop in the Serbian Orthodox Church has died from COVID-19, as his and other Orthodox churches continued the practice of serving communion using a single spoon dipped in wine. A prayer to God in anxious times by Cornelius Plantinga Jr. and a great resource page for Christian worshippers.CHINA: Bliss was that day when Wuhan lifted nearly three months of coronavirus lockdown and residents once again can get a haircut. Barber Xiong Juan is doing 70 trims a day.
China’s early failures at reporting cases squandered time to slow the pandemic.
TAIWAN: Monitored quarantines and other strict measures have helped Taiwan fight off coronavirus, despite close ties to mainland China.
IRAN: Travel around the Persian New Year that began March 20 has triggered a new surge of coronavirus cases in already hard hit Iran, with 117 deaths in the last 24 hours.
UNITED STATES: President Donald Trump dropped his goal of getting the country running again by Easter, as his coronavirus task force warned the United States could face up to 200,000 deaths from the pandemic. With the United States now leading the world in reported cases with close to 145,000, Trump on Sunday extended federal social distancing guidelines to April 30, with continued closures and state-by-state shutdowns.
In New York City, where nearly 800 people have died, Samaritan’s Purse will open Tuesday with Mount Sinai Health a 68-bed mobile hospital in Central Park (similar to facilities put in place in war-torn Iraq and this month in virus-hit Italy); the USNS Comfort, one of two U.S. Navy hospital ships, arrived Monday morning in Manhattan; and it’s now an evening ritual for New Yorkers from their apartments to applaud health workers in unison at 7 p.m. The New York Times has launched a database tracking each case.SOMALIA has reported three COVID-19 cases since March 16, but as Africa tries to brace for the spread of the disease, it underscores the challenge with fewer than 20 ICU beds nationwide. African countries quickly moved to seal borders, close airspace, and ban gatherings because they lack resources to fight outbreaks. Liberia, already tested by its 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic, has just three ventilators for 5 million people.
NETHERLANDS: Van Gogh’s Spring Garden was stolen early Monday from a Dutch museum currently closed due to the coronavirus.
IRAQ: Four French aid workers with SOS Chrétiens d’Orient kidnapped in Baghdad in January—at the height of protests and U.S.-Iran tensions over Iraq—have been released.
Sign up to receive Globe Trot via email.
Please wait while we load the latest comments...
Comments
Please register, subscribe, or log in to comment on this article.