The rigorous and uncompromising 5.0 lockdown that confined all of us homebound for 74 long days to combat the rapid spread of the dreaded Covid-19 virus showed signs of relaxation in 1.0 as announced by the Government. The notification decided to open up the Religious places for worship with effect from 8th of June 2020. Though the announcement brought lot of relief and cheers, it had its share of varied challenges as well. Challenges of limiting the faithful from crowding, strictly adhering to safe-distancing norms, frequent sanitizing, maintain hygienic environment, increasing the number of services to accommodate more people etc.,
Even as we are awaiting the guidelines from the Karnataka Government laying down the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) to be adopted while opening the Churches, Archbishop and Bishop’s drawn from various denominations decided to meet today at the Holy Trinity Church to work out a common ground to be observed by the Christian Community at large across all Churches in Bangalore and the Districts coming under the various diocese. Besides a host of decisions taken, it was also unanimously decided to meet our Hon’ble Chief Minister in a delegation representing all denominations to present our point of view vis-à-vis the procedure and the process of our worship while strictly adhering to the various norms of safe-distancing.
The meeting was attended by Most Rev Dr Peter Machado, Metropolitan Archbishop of Bangalore, Rt Rev Dr P K Samuel, Bishop of Karnataka Central Diocese, CSI. Most Rev. Mar Sebastian Adayantharath, Bishop of Mandya, Syro Malabar Rite. Most Rev Dr Abraham Mar Seraphim, Bishop, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, Rev Fr Faustine Lucas Lobo, PRO, KRCBC and Rev Christy Rajkumar, Pastor-Holy Trinity Church, & Chairmen, Civil Area Council, CSI.
-J A Kanthraj
PRO & Spokesperson