B2 eZ Re the washington post.saturday, april 4 , 2020
religion
This year, only key clergy and a
camera crew will be present. The
fire, which is flown to churches in
Greece, russia, Ukraine, Georgia,
Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Serbia and
Cyprus, will be transferred with a
police escort to the country’s air-
port. Clergy, sent from orthodox
churches to guard and collect the
flame, will not be permitted to
leave their planes.
Wadie Abu Nasser, director of
the media committee of the Cath-
olic Church in the Holy Land,
estimated that the majority of the
estimated 180,000 Arab Chris-
tians living in Israel and the Pales-
tinian territories would pray at
home, with the vast majority of
churches live-streaming events.
“It is very sad but we believe
health comes first,” Abu Nasser
said.
At the Haram al-Sharif holy
sanctuary — the third-holiest site
in Islam, which includes the al-
Aqsa mosque and the golden
Dome of the rock — the gates
have been shuttered for more
than two weeks. The site, which is
also holy to Jews, who refer to it as
the Te mple mount, is closed to
Jewish and other non-muslim vis-
itors, too.
“I never thought I would see
something like this,” said Sheikh
omar al-Kiswani, director of the
Waqf Islamic trust, which manag-
es the compound under a special
arrangement between Jordan
and Israel. “In Islam, the priority
is to protect human life, before
spiritual and religious practices.
But this situation is sad for me.”
The long-term impact of the
social distancing on religious
groups is unclear, though many
leaders fear the immediate im-
pact on donations to houses of
worship.
“I’m wondering what the ef-
fects on future public attendance
will be,” said Gabriel Said reyn-
olds, professor of Islamic studies
and theology at the University of
Notre Dame. “Will people feel
comfortable being in the same
pew, or being shoulder to shoul-
der, as they’re used to?”
robert Putnam, who wrote the
2000 book “Bowling Alone” a bout
how Americans had become in-
creasingly disconnected from one
another by joining fewer clubs,
having fewer family dinners and
having friends over less frequent-
ly, said he doesn’t believe this
period apart will likely have a
lasting impact on religious atten-
dance in the United States. But it
will cause religious organizations
and families to be creative in the
short term.
Putnam, who also co-wrote
“A merican Grace” about how reli-
gion unites and divides Ameri-
cans, said he will be having a
virtual Seder with his children
and grandchildren who are scat-
tered across the globe.
“Some people surely will say
this reminds them how nice it was
to sit in pews with people,” he
said. “Being isolated has remind-
ed some, I like being around peo-
ple.”
[email protected]
[email protected]Ruth eglash reported from
Jerusalem. sufian taha in Jerusalem
contributed to this report.The Holy fire Ceremony, an or-
thodox tradition that takes place
in the Church of the Holy Sepul-
chre, the site in Jerusalem’s old
City where many Christians be-
lieve Jesus was crucified, buried
and later resurrected, typically
draws 25,000 the day before Eas-
ter.stepped up to enforce the social
distancing restrictions and en-
sure people adhere to all the regu-
lations.
for all Christians groups, the
restrictions mean annual parades
are canceled and the number of
people at the main prayer cere-
monies will be vastly reduced.that lives with you,” he urged in a
televised address.
He also shared a public service
announcement urging Jews not
to gather in groups. “We outlasted
and overcame Pharaoh, we’ll out-
last and overcome this.”
Public Security minister Gilad
Erdan said police patrols will beIsraeli Jews, who spend the
first night of Passover recounting
the exodus from Egypt during the
festive Seder meal, were instruct-
ed by Prime minister Benjamin
Netanyahu to hold a “lockdown
Seder” t his year.
“I request that you hold in it in
the context of the nuclear familyhe will post on YouTube.
“People are dealing with pro-
found loss, so we have to adapt,”
Weinberg said.
He knows his religious peers
are in the same boat.
“We collegially greet one an-
other because we share an alley,”
Weinberg said of Shemtov and
Luqman, whose houses of wor-
ship are around the corner from
his Connecticut Avenue church,
on Leroy Place NW. “There’s a
beauty in that we’re in this togeth-
er.”
At TheSHUL of the Nation’s
Capital, Shemtov has personnel
arranging boxes that include mat-
zoh and the other traditional ele-
ments of a Seder meal to be dis-
tributed to the Jewish communi-
ty. The rabbi, who avoids the use
of electronics on holy days, will
lead a live-stream demonstration
of the Seder before Passover be-
gins at sundown Wednesday.
“Being alone is antithetical to
the spirit of Passover,” s aid Shem-
tov, whose synagogue is attended
by President Trump’s daughter
Ivanka and son-in-law Jared
Kushner.
for many families, the multi-
generational aspect will especial-
ly be missing because older peo-
ple are in isolation, Shemtov said,
and Jewish families often invite
people who have no place to go to
join them for the Seder meal.
“People are doing the absolute
best they can,” Shemtov said. “It’s
different and not as joyous as
other years have been, but people
are focusing inward on their fam-
ily and personally as opposed to
outward.”
The synagogue shares the same
tiny, one-way street as the Ameri-
can fazl mosque, a stately con-
verted rowhouse that is the oldest
muslim house of worship in the
nation’s capital. Luqman said his
mosque, established by the Ah-
madiyya muslim Community in
1950, would normally host about
50 people each night of ramadan
for an iftar, the evening meal
when muslims break their rama-
dan fast, starting on April 23.
Instead, this year, families will
break fast in their homes.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a blessing in
disguise because there’s a pan-
demic, but there are all these
distractions in people’s lives that
disrupt their religious duties”
Luqman said, citing the obliga-
tion to pray f ive times a day as one
such duty. “When people are at
home, they can turn their atten-
tion to these prayers.”
In Jerusalem, the strict novel
coronavirus social distancing reg-
ulations that were in place for
most of march look set to contin-
ue through April, upending tradi-
tional holiday plans for Jews,
muslims and Christians and
threatening the country’s tourism
industry.
Passover, Easter and ramadan
typically draw hundreds of thou-
sands of international visitors
and pilgrims of all faiths to Israel,
but this year, Christian and mus-
lim leaders have accepted that
flagship events will be carried out
with only essential clergy and, in
many cases, streamed online for
followers.
holidays from B1
Faith leaders scramble to observe Passover, Easter and Ramadan at a distance
photos by bonnie Jo Mount/the Washington postThe district’s american Fazl Mosque, top, normally would host about 5 0 people each night of Ramadan. Because of the coronavirus
pandemic, families instead will break their fasts at home. The nearby st. Margaret’s Episcopal Church has also canceled gatherings, so the
Rev. Richard Mosson Weinberg has been preparing an Easter sermon that he will post on youTube. “We have to adapt,” Weinberg said.BY JULIE ZAUZMERThe rev. Peter Walsh has al-
ways treasured the tactile job of
performing last rites for his con-
gregants before their deaths, no-
ticing with awe the way anoint-
ing a person with holy oil and
laying his hands on their body
seems to make them approach
their last moments more easily.
But William P ike, a 91-year-old
member of Walsh’s Episcopal
church in New Canaan, Conn.,
was dying of the novel coronavi-
rus.
Walsh realized he would need
to do something he had never
done before: He administered
the last rites by faceTime.
Pike was unconscious, but a
hospital staff member recharged
his iPhone and held it up to him,
and Walsh believed his friend
could hear him. “I told Bill I
loved him, that he was mightily
loved by his whole community.
That he was a great man,” Walsh
said in an interview. “I believe in
the p ower of the Holy Spirit t o do
things that we cannot make
sense out of. I simply imagined
that the hands of the Lord were
laid upon him, and not my
hands.”
Across the country, clergy of
all religious traditions are strug-
gling to do some of the most
challenging and most personal
parts of their job in a time of new
restrictions on in-person gather-
ings: ministering to the sick, the
dying and the bereaved.
These difficult moments,
which often call for a religious
ritual such as anointing a dying
person with oil, or just for a
calming and reassuring touch,
are especially hard to conduct
now, when many hospitals have
banned visitors and virtually all
Americans are being urged to
remain physically distant from
others.
“In our hospital, some chap-
lains have already been in the
room with a patient so they can
have their family on the phone
and have them say their good-
byes. There’s been a lot of face-
Time,” said Sondos Kholaki, a
muslim chaplain at an orange
County, Calif., hospital. “It’s less
than ideal. There’s no really nice
way to say it. It sucks. It’s lonely.
It’s isolating.”
But Kholaki knows it’s essen-
tial for clergy and family mem-
bers to distance themselves, re-
serving scarce masks, gowns and
other protective equipment for
the medical staff.
Some clergy, especially in tra-
ditions such as Catholicism that
emphasize the importance of
rituals being carried out in per-
son, are going to new lengths to
minister to the sick and dying
safely.
Priests are suiting up in per-sonal protective equipment like
a doctor or a nurse, to stand by
the bedsides of people on the
brink of death.
others are bringing some of
life’s most intimate and wrench-
ing conversations online.
At Sharp memorial Hospital i n
San Diego, Catholic chaplain Liz
mackenzie said the staff chap-
lains have offered telephone
co unseling to 15 coronavirus pa-
tients so far — no in-person visitsallowed. When she offered to
pray over the phone with one
man in the intensive care unit
who was suffering from the vi-
rus, the man grew too short of
breath to continue the conversa-
tion. “We had to sit in silence,”
she said.
for Catholic p atients, macken-
zie h as sought out information to
share about the Vatican’s direc-
tive that bishops can choose to
allow “general absolution” — a
resolution for any person’s sins
before their death even without
the in-person confession to a
priest that is normally called for— if the coronavirus makes it too
difficult for a priest to be at the
bedside.
U. S. bishops so far have not
taken the Vatican up on that
offer, by and large. In Spring-
field, mass., the diocese an-
nounced nurses could anoint
patients with oil instead of a
priest and then quickly reversed
course.
But mackenzie says her pa-
tients have been w illing t o accepta telephone blessing from her
rather than insisting on receiv-
ing the sacrament in person.
“People are disappointed, but
they’re also very understanding.... They’re usually happy just to
have a blessing,” s he said. “ That’s
really what people are looking
for, somebody to connect with, to
see them — to see their fears and
vulnerabilities and still want to
be connected. And that’s some-
thing we can try to do on the
phone. But it’s easier to do in
person.”
In the Diocese of Arlington,
the rev. Paul Scalia, who
serves as vicar for clergy, said
priests have suspended their
ordinary in-person visits to
the elderly and homebound,
and all of their other usual
sacraments, including masses.
“our Lord works definitely
through the sacraments, but
he is not limited by the sacra-
ments,” Scalia said. “He can
still come to us.”
But deathbed visits would be
the very last duty that Scalia
would want to give up, and he
said Arlington’s priests are pre-
pared to perform last rites in
person whenever possible.
“Death is where the rubber
meets the road,” Scalia said.
“That is where we want the
presence of Christ the most.
Catholics throughout the world
pray the Hail mary: ‘... now and
at t he hour of our death.’ We n eed
Him especially then. That can be
the time of the greatest fear and
the time of greatest anxiety. We
want to make sure Christ is as
present as he can be to that
person.”
In New York, rabbi Sharon
Kleinbaum and her synagogue
of about 1,300 members have
been through contagious
plagues before. At Congregation
Beit Simchat Torah, an LGBT
synagogue, 40 percent of the
congregation died during the
AIDS crisis of the 1980s, Klein-
baum said. “We know the powerof creating communal support
systems, and not disappearing
when people get sick, and not
being afraid of being there when
things get ugly,” she said. “I
believe God demands of us: Be
present.”
But what happens when you
can’t be present?
Kleinbaum is finding out —
about 15 members of her syna-
gogue have the coronavirus, and
she finds herself texting prayers
to patients instead of sitting by
their sides. Her congregants are
dropping off groceries at the
doorsteps of elderly members
too scared to leave their houses,
and at the houses of those who
have lost their jobs.
Last week, Kleinbaum led a
shiva minyan, the traditional
gathering of Jewish mourners
after a death, unlike any she has
ever seen before.
The deceased had died of the
coronavirus, and his w ife h ad the
illness, too. She coughed badly
throughout the gathering. Their
son and daughter, also sick with
the virus, managed to attend. In
the next room, the daughter’s
husband was so feverish that he
couldn’t get out of bed.
Still, they sat shiva, alone in
their home, but also in the
presence of 150 friends and fami-
ly — who gathered on a Zoom
call.
[email protected]Ministering last rites virtually: U.S. clergy turn to FaceTime and Zoom
“I simply imagined that the hands of the Lord
were laid upon him, and not my hands.”
The Rev. Peter Walsh, who administered last rites to a member of his
new Canaan, Conn., episcopal church o ver Facetime