THIS YEAR, THE FAITHFUL WILL SEND THEIR PRAYERS FROM HOME

South Korea’s Patient 31 can serve as an example of spreading the deadly infection through church gatherings. Namely, it is a woman aged 61 or the thirty-first positively tested patient in the country, who, during only two visits to the church of which she was a member, managed to infect an incredibly large number of believers. So the number of just a few cases has risen to thousands of newcomers in just a few weeks, mostly from the town of Daegu, where the church is located.

It seems that the calls for celebrating the Easter holidays in the churches across the country are not calming down, despite all the efforts to point out the catastrophic consequences that such gatherings would cause.

Thus, the latest posts are spread through social networks, mostly by church profiles, so on the profile of the church “Holy Trinity” appeared an inscription that was later deleted, with the following content “Brothers and sisters Orthodox Christians!” On April 18, 2020, at 11:30 PM, let us all be in the Churches in your parish and at 00:00 we will welcome the Resurrection of Christ as befits us with prayer and communion. And not on balconies. The church still does not have a ban on worship, so all worship remains as it is established in the type, but if there are changes in the time of worship we will inform you in time. Peace and blessing from Christ God for you and your loved ones” is said in the appeal.
This announcement was met with a negative reaction from Metropolitan Timothy, who said that the Church had not given any blessing to organize and spread such calls.

In his public announcement, the Prime Minister Spasovski said that we are entering a critical phase of the infection, where the pandemic is expected to reach its peak, and accordingly he said , “This year, believers will send their prayers from home. Let’s send Easter messages from home about the victory over death. The same will apply to Ramadan messages. From home, by phone, over the Internet, with the family and from their own home, and not gathered by relatives and guests. It will not make us weaker believers but it will strengthen our spirit, because we all know that we are saving lives with it! ”.

The Holy Synod of Bishops, in a statement to the public, called for respect for the already established government measures, all in order to reduce the spread of contagious disease, stressing that possible violators of emergency government measures should bear their own responsibility and be properly sanctioned.

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South Korea’s “Patient 31” can serve as an example of spreading the deadly infection through church gatherings. “Patient 31” was a woman aged 61 or the thirty-first positively tested patient in the country, who, during only two visits to the church, managed to infect an incredibly large number of believers. So the number of just a few cases has risen to thousands of newcomers in just a few weeks, mostly coming from the town of Daegu, where the church was located.

reuters.com

According to this, now is the time for everyone to take responsibility for themselves and their loved ones. We do not need such a scenario, which is a school example of how only one patient can drastically change the situation and contribute to the situation getting out of control. Therefore, sitting at home will not make us weaker believers, but it will strengthen our faith to do what is right, for the good of all of us, for health workers and all those who sacrifice themselves every day to overcome the pandemic.