Places of worship have had to close in an effort to curb the spread of coronavirus but are still open for private prayer and funerals with up to 30 people in attendance.
When the lockdown ends on Wednesday, churches hope to be able to welcome parishioners back into a safe environment. However, preparations for Christmas will be much harder this year with restrictions on attendance and singing not allowed. Rev Jeremy Tayler, rector of St Mary’s Church in Henley and St Nicholas in Remenham, has continued to provide a virtual service via YouTube once a week. But he said: “The people who are the most isolated are those who are not comfortable with the internet. “I was one of the people who was bold about getting back to both churches as soon as we were allowed to. “I don’t think that online church is a substitute and my focus has been about making face-to-face church as safe as possible.
“I want to be open but I can see why the Government has done what it has done. “The fear is that it only takes one church to let the side down — there was a church in London not following the rules recently — and suddenly we are all tarred with the same brush.” Pews have been taped off so that people can’t sit too close to each other and there is a one-way system. Churchwardens clean after each service. St Mary’s is open for private prayer from 11am to 5pm on Wednesdays and Sundays during lockdown and St Nicholas is open every day during normal working hours. Rev Tayler added: “There are a lot of things we would like to do but there is still so much uncertainty. “St Mary’s is a huge building and you could probably pack in between 400 and 500 if you had to under normal circumstances. “It all depends on how people are grouped at the moment. If you have individuals from separate households, we could only get 50 people. In reality, people come as families or in couples, so we can do a lot better than that.
“On a normal Sunday morning, that wouldn’t be too bad but we will have to think about how we make the space work for Christmas. We are planning to do more services but for fewer people and possibly something outdoors at Remenham. We will have a booking system to avoid turning people away. We will do as much as we can.” Fr Paul Fitzpatrick, of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Vicarage Road, Henley, has been holding two live services a day over the internet. Hundreds of people have tuned in from across the country and as far as America, South Africa and Japan. Fr Fitzpatrick has planned what he wants to do over Christmas. The church welcomed more than 800 people on Christmas Day last year but it can only hold a maximum of 45 people under the covid restrictions. In order to get around this, parishioners will be asked to pre-book across 12 days via the church’s website. Fr Fitzpatrick said: “The challenge was how to get hundreds of people into the church when we only have space for 45. “We are going to celebrate the 12 days of Christmas — it is a season, not a day. We will be doing a service every morning, starting on Christmas Eve and finishing on January 6. Every day will be Christmas Day. “We have a very diverse congregation and different times have different significance. For Polish people, Christmas Eve is much more important and people from Spain celebrate epiphany more than Christmas. It has taken a lot of planning to create the booking system and we’ve had a trial to check that people can use it. Singing is popular but we will just have to play the melody of a carol.
“We will have our 10am service on Christmas Day and I will do another one straight afterwards at 11am that will be live streamed so we can sing all the carols together. That also allows the people who couldn’t come to the earlier service to join in.
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Harrison Okafor
editor
Judith is a believer, a lover of Christ and a Gospel freak person. A passionate gospel blogger and press writer. I work with GospelHitsNaija.net Media, no 1 Gospel music platform.
