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Without baptisms, without weddings, without religious services: the pandemic hits the churches hard. But they quickly transferred their pastoral offer to the Internet and demonstrated their value as social parentheses.
Zurich pastor Christoph Sigrist blesses the city from one of the towers.
The highest church festival is celebrated for the first time since time immemorial. Pastors and priests cannot celebrate worship on Good Friday or Easter Sunday, these are times of the epidemic. Some conservative commentators criticize the ban on church events and ask whether religious institutions are not at least as important to soul salvation as supermarkets are for physical well-being. However, most church representatives and church people accept the measures without complaint. And the crisis shows that the church is more than worship, incense, and organ music.
Normal church life is also paralyzed outside of Easter weekend. There are no baptisms or weddings, funerals can only take place in the smallest families. Reformed people will likely have to postpone confirmation celebrations, Catholics, First Communion celebrations, and confirmations. Catholics, for whom the ritual and community character is more pronounced, currently have to practice dispensing. Priests are only allowed to go home with parishioners to give the communion of death. Believers are released from the traditional Easter confession; Online or telephone confession is prohibited. And the holy water pools must remain empty. But the churches are by no means inactive.
For the weak
When members who have not attended church services for years are asked why they do not resign and continue to pay church taxes, many reply: Churches are important to people who have been less fortunate in life. . Therefore, charity has remained the core business of the churches, even in a largely secularized environment. And this commitment to vulnerable people is currently particularly in demand. Particularly vulnerable are the elderly and other Sars CoV 2 risk groups who are no longer allowed to leave the home.
Therefore, the Bern-Jura-Solothurn Reformed Church has launched the online platform “Mobile Messenger”. Young people can register there if they want to shop for people at risk. In the city of Zurich, the Young Catholic Church placed flyers everywhere to indicate a similar campaign. According to their own statements, volunteers have already performed several hundred tasks, including childcare for families who have struggled due to school closings. These are just two examples of the offers of help that churches have accumulated in many places.
Classic pastoral care is also in high demand these days. Sibylle Forrer, pastor in Kilchberg and former spokesperson for the “Word for Sunday,” reported on Twitter that she calls church members for several hours every day. The operators of Seelsorge.net, a platform shared by the Reformed and Catholic Churches, also report that they currently have a wealth of advice via email or hotline.
Internet services
Even the ceremonial is not completely left behind: numerous masses and religious services are held, though without a live audience, worshipers may follow them through a live broadcast or with a time delay such as a video recording. Free churches like the ICF in particular, which have long relied on modern media such as video podcasts, have quickly adapted to the reality of the crown. But many regional church congregations also adapt quickly. “Digital ways of passing on the faith are now getting a huge boost, affecting older pastors as well,” says theology professor Thomas Schlag, who launched the “Digital Religion (s)” research project at the University from Zurich.
The uplifting feeling many parishioners feel when the church is bathed in candlelight on Easter night and organ music and singing fill the room can hardly be reproduced in front of a laptop screen. And yet, Thomas Schlag believes that a culture of encounter is possible in cyberspace, which conveys belonging and creates spiritual identity. “The old idea that virtual is merely artificial and abstract is no longer true. There is also the possibility of direct exchange through digital channels. »
So Sunday worship does not have to be one-way communication. An example of this is the interactive services that the Reformed Pastor Werner Näf offers in the Schaffhausen parish in Gächlingen on Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Parishioners can get involved in advance requesting a song or recording a small video statement, or they can join the live service through the microphone and camera.
From Thomas Schlag’s perspective, even the Lord’s Supper can be celebrated online, at least for the Reformed. All that was needed was a congregation, which could also be created on the Internet, and the professional guidance of a pastor, who would properly proclaim the words of the Lord’s Supper. “From a theological point of view, when a ritual community gathers together, little speaks against the fact that it is a ‘valid’ sacrament, even if everyone consumes wine or grape juice and bread alone.”
Strengthened from the crisis
Such virtual rituals are currently primarily a solution. But Schlag assumes that the current diversity and dynamism he has declared will also have long-term effects. “Many people in the church are now discovering the opportunities for interactive digital communication.” The theologian believes that the churches will also emerge from the crisis stronger than before. “When people depend on a sense of community and solidarity, churches show their strongest side, which has always been the case historically.”
People now realized that religions were one of the forces that held society together, says Schlag. And there are hardly any fundamentalist fanatics in this country who can immediately undo this gain in image. There are no preachers who proclaim that the pandemic is a punishment from God. It is not super pious that he claims that his beliefs save them from the virus.
Until now, the auxiliary bishop of Chur, Marian Eleganti, has been out of line and declared that consecrated water could not transmit disease. But Eleganti’s boss quickly slapped him. And he made it clear that this is not the moment of such madness.
Churches ask Federal Council to bring refugees from Greece
hhs. The leaders of the three Swiss national churches use Easter to make an urgent appeal to the Federal Council, which is supposed to quickly evacuate a group of refugees from the Greek islands to Switzerland. “The situation for asylum seekers is catastrophic and worsens in the face of the Crown pandemic,” says Felix Gmür, president of the Episcopal Conference, Gottfried Locher, president of the Evangelical Reformed Church in Switzerland, and Christian Catholic Bishop Harald Rein. “Switzerland can be a role model in Europe, in terms of humanity and attitude,” emphasizes Locher. Specifically, these are unaccompanied minor asylum-seekers who have relatives in Switzerland. So far, 20 young people to whom this applies have been identified. But the true number is much higher, church representatives write. The federal government must now identify all of these eligible people and bring them here. “In many places in Switzerland, cities and communities, parishes and parishes, church and non-church aid organizations can receive and care for these people,” say Gmür, Locher and Rein.
