Coronavirus shutdowns are forcing historically unprecedented changes to celebrations of Easter and Passover, with many religious institutions canceling or moving their services online.
Easter, the most important feast in Christianity, falls on April 12 this year. In the Catholic Church, where the day is preceded by Holy Week, which includes a series of special Masses and other services, several dioceses are already canceling the public celebration of those events.
Catholic bishops in Ohio on Monday decided to cancel all public Easter Masses in the state, a decision made in keeping with Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s ban on all public gatherings of 100 or more people. The Diocese of Brooklyn on Wednesday made the same decision after a Eucharistic minister in a Queens church, along with six other parishioners, tested positive for the coronavirus. The Eucharistic minister had last distributed communion at an Ash Wednesday Mass, which draws some of the biggest yearly crowds for Catholic churches.
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Many Protestant denominations in the United States are taking similar precautions. President of the Southern Baptist Church J.D. Greear recommended this week that churches follow state-issued bans on large gatherings until they are lifted, regardless of when in the calendar that may be.
“I think it’s important for us to realize that yeah, we need to take wise precautions, and we’ve got to keep people safe and think prudently,” Greear said in a recent sermon addressing the coronavirus. “But we also know that historically, biblically, in a time of crisis, the body of Christ runs toward tragedy, not from it. We don’t retreat back in fear: We go forward in faith. This is a unique opportunity for us to be able to demonstrate the love and generosity of Christ.”
The Washington National Cathedral on Wednesday closed the church and suspended its services for Holy Week and Easter. The Episcopal Church is the second-largest church in the U.S., and leadership typically packs the neo-Gothic church with so many people on Easter that it requires visitors to obtain passes to attend.
But because of the coronavirus, the church this year will stream Holy Week and Easter services on its website. Dean Randolph Hollerith said that the online nature of the events does not lessen the community that Christians feel around Easter.
“The wonder of the Christian faith is that we worship a God who became one of us and who knows what it means to feel the full spectrum of human emotions,” Hollerith said. “We can take comfort that we walk with a savior who will guide our steps and accompany us in this new terrain together, even if the road ahead may not always be easy to see.”
Some churches have canceled their high Easter services outright. The Anglican Church of the Resurrection in Washington, D.C., decided to cancel its Easter vigil out of caution for the safety of its congregants and for financial concerns.
“Unlike other services, the vigil requires a considerable investment of time and money upfront,” Dan Claire, one of the church’s pastors, said in an email to members. “The future is so uncertain that we do not want to run the risk of preparing only to have to cancel an event of this magnitude.”
Instead of an Easter vigil, church leadership decided to celebrate a vigil service the night before Pentecost, which is 50 days after Easter.
Some church cancellations have rippled beyond Easter and into late spring. The United Methodist Church on Wednesday postponed its 2020 Annual Conference, where the church’s leadership was expected to splinter, from early May to an unspecified date. Many secular Easter events have also been canceled, notably the White House’s annual Easter egg roll.
While Christians grapple with the prospect of Easter at home, coronavirus shutdowns also threaten Jewish celebrations of Passover, which begins this year on April 8. Typically, Jewish groups celebrate with a Seder, the feast commemorating Passover, but this week, many such events have been canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Seders nationwide have been canceled, and the White House on Wednesday urged Orthodox rabbis to comply with shutdown procedures to prevent further spread of the disease.
As with Christians, most Jews have opted to move their communal religious practices online. Rena Munster, who lives in Washington, D.C., plans to connect her family’s celebration of the Passover Seder through video calls, but she says she feels that this will diminish the celebration of the event.
“The hardest thing to translate into an online platform is going to be the food. The family recipes and all the things that we’re used to probably won’t be possible,” Munster told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We always get together to help with the preparations, and that’s just as much a part of the holiday as the holiday itself.”
