6 ★ FT Weekend 4 April/5 April 2020
CO R O N AV I R U S
A N D R E S S C H I PA N I —S AO PAU LO
J O S E P H COT T E R I L L— J O H A N N E S B U R G
NE I L M U N S H I— L AG O S
Kneeling before a giant, shiny recon-
struction of the Ark of the Covenant, the
congregant placed his bare palms on the
long, wooden altar, kissed the smooth
surface and then pressed his hands to
his face, asking the Lord for protection
from coronavirus.
Over the next 15 minutes, more than a
dozen others performed a similar rou-
tine of devotion, flattening their cheeks
against different ornaments inside
the Temple of Solomon in São Paulo.
The church, which can seat about
10,000 people, is the glitzy headquar-
ters of the Universal Church of the King-
dom of God, one of Brazil’s biggest and
most influential evangelical congrega-
tions, where despite social distancing
restrictions and the risk of spreading
Covid-19, worshippers still come to pray.
“People keep coming in to pray in
these hard times. If they believe, they
will be saved,” said Caio Miranda, one of
the church’s handlers, holding a pay-
ment terminal for congregants to make
donations. Even during a pandemic,
believers must continue to tithe one-
tenth of their income to the church.
Across the world, similar scenes have
played out in different countries, where
despite curbs and lockdowns some reli-
gious communities have continued to
come together. In France and South
Korea, coronavirus cases have been
linked to gatherings of Christian groups.
As the pandemic moves to emerging
economies in Africa and Latin America
where evangelicalism has been on the
rise, health officials fear that powerful
religious communities will help the
virus to spread by continuing to meet.
In Brazil, most state governors and
city mayors banned religious assem-
blies only to be overruled by President
Jair Bolsonaro who has exempted
churches from lockdowns as an essen-
tial service.
A hard-right populist who was raised
as a Catholic but re-baptised as an evan-
gelical in Israel’s river Jordan, Mr Bol-
sonaro has long courted political sup-
port from Brazil’s growing evangelical
churches and some analysts say he is
bending to pressure to keep them open.
“He is subjecting public health poli-
cies to political ties with some evangeli-
cal churches with great damage to the
health of Brazilians,” said Eliane Morais,
a scholar of religion and health at the
Fe d e r a l U n i v e r s i t y o f R i o d e
Janeiro. Recent surveys suggest that
about a third of Brazil’s 211m people are
evangelical Christians.
The courts have intervened and are
trying to shut churches like the Temple
of Solomon after confirmed cases in
Latin America’s largest economy almost
quadrupled in less than a week to more
than 7,000. But Mr Bolsonaro, who has
downplayed the risk of the virus, callingit mere “sniffles”, insists the churches
are many people’s “last shelter”.
In Iran and Saudi Arabia, Muslim
leaders have taken a different approach,
ordering the closure of holy sites and
cancelling Friday prayers, in contrast to
some political and religious figures in
Brazil and parts of Africa.
“For the sake of our faith and for us as
a government we did not close the
churches and mosques,” John Magufuli,
Tanzania’s president, who identifies as a
devout Catholic, said last month.
“Corona is the devil that cannot survive
in the body of Jesus,” he added, shrug-
ging off Pope Francis’s wishes that
churches hold Easter mass without
bringing their congregations together.
Marco Feliciano, a Brazilian neo-
Pentecostal pastor and congressman
close to Mr Bolsonaro, told the Financial
Times that “churches should be open”
as they were during “the worst wars and
plagues”.
Similar scenes have played out
in South Africa, where health authori-
ties are scrambling to trace hundreds of
people who may have been infected atan evangelical service called the Jerusa-
lem Prayer Breakfast in the city of Blo-
emfontein. Since the meeting, 67
attendees have tested positive for the
virus, including Angus Buchan, a well-
known South African evangelist, and
Kenneth Meshoe, leader of the African
Christian Democratic Party, a rightwing
movement with seats in South Africa’s
parliament.
The gathering took place before South
Africa ordered a national lockdown last
week. Still, Zweli Mkhize, South Africa’s
health minister, highlighted the prayer
breakfast to underline the risks of infec-
tion. “Church leaders who attended the
meeting, put their congregation in con-
tact with the virus,” Mr Mkhize said.
In Nigeria, the founder of Winners
Chapel, one of the biggest of the coun-
try’s many megachurches and capable
of holding up to 250,000 people, defied
government advice by running services
on its sprawling campus outside Lagos
before a lockdown was ordered in the
city on Monday.
Nigeria’s 200m citizens are among the
most religious people in the world, sur-
veys show, and the mainly Christian
south is home to several Pentecostal
megachurches.
David Oyedepo, dressed in a pressed
white suit, told a crowd of hundreds
from the pulpit in a livestream of one
sermon last month: “Shutting down
churches would be like shutting down
hospitals.”Religion.Contagion
Health threat
in the pews
as churches
flout bans
Congregations across world
raise risk of infection by
continuing to meet for prayer
Worshippers
pray outside a
church in
Guaruja, Brazil,
while, below
right, pamphlets
on coronavirus
are distributed
after a service
in Kagiso,
South Africa
Roosevelt Cassio/Reuters
J I M B R U N S D E N— B R U S S E L SBrussels will temporarily allow ventila-
tors, testing kits and other crucial
goods to enter the EU duty and VAT
free in an effort to drive down the price
of frontline equipment in the battle
against coronavirus.European Commission president Ursula
von der Leyen said that the move could
cut the final price of equipment flowing
into the EU from countries such as
China. Giving the example of Italy, she
said that the final purchase price of
masks imported into the country could
fall by as much as a third.
The suspension will only apply to
imports into the EU market, and will
be backdated to the end of January.
The commission said it would last at
least until the end of July. It will apply
to imports by the public sector,
notably hospitals, and by approved
charities.
Noting that ventilators normally facean average VAT rate in the EU of 20 per
cent, Ms von der Leyen said the suspen-
sion decision was “our contribution to
easing the pressure on prices for medi-
cal and protective equipment”.
She added: “We need a lot of this
equipment, and it can be expensive.”
The step will have the side-effect of
reducing funds flowing into national
exchequers and to the EU. Some 80 per
cent of customs duties collected by
national governments are earmarked
for the EU budget, which also claims a
share of VAT receipts. EU officials said
that the commission informed national
governments by letter on March 20 that
the union’s customs code allowed for
duties and taxes to be waived. All EU
member states and the UK responded
by requesting the move.
UK chancellor Rishi Sunak had
already announced on Tuesday that
Britain would waive customs duty and
VAT on vital imported goods coming
from outside the EU.Procurement
EU scraps VAT and duty
on crucial medical imports
‘People
keep
coming in
to pray in
these hard
times. If
they
believe,
they will be
saved’
APRIL 4 2020 Section:World Time: 3/4/2020 - 17: 40 User: john.conlon Page Name: WORLD4 USA, Part,Page,Edition: USA, 6, 1