Greek [Orthodox] Church Petitions to be Allowed to Serve Liturgy, Lawyers Seeking to Annul Order to Ban Church Services

Pravoslavie ^ | 3/27/20

[marshmallow]

Although the Greek Orthodox Church earlier agreed to limit its services to just one-hour Divine Liturgies on Sundays, the state was not content, and on March 16 it banned all services until March 30, in an effort to contain the highly contagious coronavirus.

However, while understanding the need to protect the faithful and all people, the Church also understands the need for the Divine Liturgy to be served.

Thus, the Church has petitioned the Ministry of Education and Religion to make an exemption and allow the Divine Liturgy to be served according to the normal schedule, albeit behind closed doors, reports the Orthodoxia News Agency.

Currently, only emergency services such as funerals are allowed, as well as individual church visits for private prayer.

An exemption for the Divine Liturgy “will greatly facilitate the sacred mission of the Church, which is obliged to pray and supplicate for the health of its flock, but will also contribute decisively to allowing the lay members of the Church to keep their composure,” Archbishop Ieronymos of Athens writes in his letter to Minister Niki Kerameus.

The Greek primate also asked that services be allowed to continue in monasteries, where people live communally anyway, and that funerals be allowed even in churches outside of cemeteries, as not all cemeteries have their own church.

[QBFimi]

Sooooo, they don’t have the Internet in Greece?

[CondoleezzaProtege]

A lot of the elderly faithful don’t use internet, and many Orthodox and Catholic faithful spend most of their week inside church anyway and don’t appreciate, at this age, being patronizingly told what’s good for them. If they had to die anywhere it’d be church.

Also WiFi isn’t even that good in many of those places. And unlike Protestant services, the liturgy is an intensely physical and participatory sacramental act.