The believers found it difficult to forgo religious services due to the corona pandemic. In many countries, church life is now starting up again. A prominent couple comes to one of the first services in Berlin.
Berlin (AP) - Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier thanked the churches and religious communities for their pastoral work and the willingness to limit the Corona crisis.
"In the corona pandemic, they behaved responsibly and prudently from the start," he said on Sunday after attending a service in St. Mary's Church near Alexanderplatz in Berlin. "They accept restrictions on religious life to protect against the spread of corona. And they have broken new ground in pastoral care to be there for the faithful even in this difficult time."
The Federal President attended the service held by Bishop Christian Stäblein together with his wife Elke Büdenbender. Stäblein recalled that it was the first service with believers after ten weeks. There were strict rules for them. A maximum of 50 people were allowed to attend the service. It was forbidden to sing. Only a single singer accompanied the organists, the worshipers hummed. The Lord's Supper was also not allowed to be celebrated. All believers wore mouth-nose protection - including Steinmeier and Büdenbender.
"It was very nice to attend a Sunday service again for the first time today," Steinmeier said afterwards. "Even under special conditions, with mouth protection and in a smaller group, it is this experience of community that fills us people with confidence and strength. Many people have been waiting for weeks for this."
Because of the risk of infection in Germany, no conventional church services have been allowed since March. This was particularly difficult for Christians at Easter. Currently, Muslims are suffering from the restrictions in Ramadan. Many parishes developed alternative forms such as online services - such as the St. Marienkirche in Berlin.
There, Bishop Stäblein emphasized in a word to the congregation on Sunday that Germany had shown cohesion in the past few weeks, "as it is almost unique, certainly for recent history". The bishop responsible for the Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia emphasized: "With great discipline and clever political decisions, the consequences of the virus have been contained and limited."
The churches had also participated in distance, hygiene, refraining from contacts and refraining from meetings and had developed creativity and worship in other forms with great creativity. Today people grope their way back to the celebration in physical presence. "With caution, because nobody wants this to become a source of infection. At the same time, we have to learn to live with the virus," said Stäblein.
In other federal states, real services could be celebrated for the first time on Sunday, albeit with similarly strict conditions as in Berlin. In Hamburg, Kirsten Fehrs, bishop in the Sprengel Hamburg and Lübeck of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in northern Germany, said in her sermon: "I am grateful, how do I think many are grateful that we can celebrate worship again. Smaller, but also different, but: we are celebrating." This is a completely new feeling after weeks of digital worship. "Today we are pleased about a small amount of freedom of design that has been regained," said Fehrs, according to the announcement.
