Τhe rapid spread of the covornavirus that sends thousands to hospitals and to graves around the globe does not impress the Greek Church. It insists on daily religious services with some ‘real revolutionaries in black” to even call on the faithful to break the lockdown.
One local Bishop urged the faithful to lie and break the lockdown restrictions in order to go to the church and receive the Holy Communion. Another opened the church doors to the congregation and performed the services in front of 30 people. At the same time, the top religious leader Archbishop Ieronymos asked the state to allow performance of services even if behind closed doors.
The Bishop of Corfu called on the faithful to check “exercise/physical activity” on Lockdown Movement Permits and go to church, kiss the Holy Cross and receive the Holy Communion.
In his speech transmitted by Corfu TV and on local radio stations, the Bishop said, among others, that the church doors should open and that those who are faithful should go and receive the communion where is shared by many through a single spoon.
“So get yourself such permit and write that you go out for your physical activity and come to the church to socialize, to pray, to receive strength and hope. They may tell us ‘don’t panic’ but what we see every day is that our people paniced,” he stressed., ”said Metropolitan Corfu.
He said that the lockdown measures as just “a rehearsal for a global dictatorship they want to imposed to us.”
Leader of Greek Church, Archbishop Ieronymos, has requested exemption from coronavirus curfew measures and asked that religious services are carried out on normal daily schedule behind closed doors.
In a letter to the Education and Religion Minister Niki Kerameos on Thursday, Ieronymos also asked that religious services are performed in for services within hospitals and monasteries.
In his letter Ieronymos claimed that the exception “will contribute decisively to allowing the lay members of the Church to keep their composure.”
The request comes as a joint ministerial decision suspending all religious services expires until March 30.
Before the lockdown, introduced on March 23, the government had allowed only emergency services such as funerals, with a restricted number of attendees, and church visits for individual prayers only, with distances kept among the faithful. Current curfew exemption reasons do not include individual prayer at churches.
The lockdown did not bother a priest in Agios Nikolaos church in Patras, though, to open the doors and perform the religious services in front of some 30 people.
When the reporter of Patras TV entered the church and started filming the lockdown violation, the faithful hindered him. The liturgy was interrupted and the congregation messed with the reporter, local media wrote. The Bishop of Patras was briefed and has reportedly decided to take disciplinary measures against the priest.
PS Right. I want to see police checking permits of grannies and grandpas going for physical activity and exercise 🙂
Across the entire world, mosques and churches rapidly closed in order to protect their members and in fact also the priests. Only in Greece is there a church which thinks that it is superior to the laws of nature. They share this delusion with narcissistic maniacs like Bolsonaro and Trump. Nothing more needs to be said.
Simple lock the idiots up…
Church services here have 3 people: priest, psalti, Sexton. No more. Video by tripod.
Watch on TV or internet