Pandemic hits Easter revelry, services for another year

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April 5, 2021

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Pandemic hits Easter revelry, services for another year

Source: AP | 00:00 UTC+8 April 5, 2021 |

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Christianity’s most joyous feast day was celebrated worldwide with faithful sitting far apart in pews and singing choruses of “Hallelujah” through face coverings on a second Easter Sunday conditioned by pandemic precautions.

From Protestant churches in South Korea to St Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican, worshippers followed national or local regulations aimed at preventing the transmission of the coronavirus. In some traditionally Roman Catholic countries in Europe, Easter featured a new ritual: lining up to get a COVID-19 vaccine.

At a hospital in the Lombardy region of Italy, where the pandemic first erupted in the West in February 2020, a hospital gave a traditional dove-shaped Easter cake symbolizing peace to each person waiting to get vaccinated. Many of the ones who came were in their 80s.

A local soccer team in Lyon, France, opened its stadium as a vaccination center for the long holiday weekend. Some 9,000 people were expected to receive their shots there over three days as the French government tries to speed up the pace of vaccinations amid a fresh outbreak of infections.

Cavernous cathedral

In the Holy Land, air travel curbs and quarantine regulations prevented foreign pilgrims from flocking to religious sites in Jerusalem during Holy Week, which culminates in Easter celebrations. Pope Francis lamented that over the last year, the pandemic has prevented some churchgoers from attending worship services.

Inside St Peter’s Basilica, the 200 or so faithful who were allowed to attend looked lost in the cavernous cathedral. Normally, thousands would attend the Mass celebrated by Francis, and a crowd would gather outside in St Peter’s Square, with more than 100,000 sometimes assembling to receive the pope’s special Easter blessing after Mass.

But this year, like last year, crowds are banned from gathering in Italy, and at the Vatican. Francis delivered his noon Easter address on world affairs from inside the basilica, using the occasion to appeal anew for the international community to step up to ensure vaccines reach people living in the poorest countries.

The pontiff sounded weary as he noted that pandemic worries and protective measures have crimped religious holiday traditions in many places and at times kept some faithful from engaging in public worship.

“We pray that these restrictions, as well as all restrictions on freedom of worship and religion worldwide, may be lifted and everyone be allowed to pray and praise God freely,” he said.

In Jerusalem, the Easter service at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was celebrated by Latin Patriarch Pierbattista, the senior Roman Catholic cleric in the Holy Land. The site in Jerusalem’s Old City is where many Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and rose from the dead.

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Pandemic hits Easter revelry, services for another year

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