Tribune News Service

Amritsar, December 24

Terming this year’s Christmas a ‘Covid-19 Christmas’, bishop Pradeep Kumar Sumantaroy, who heads diocese, North India-Amritsar, shared the new norms for celebrating the festival. Cutting down not just on festivities this year, the churches will also observe few rules regarding social distancing, while changing the course of traditional prayer service.

“This year, as we all know, the pandemic has overshadowed a lot of things. We have been asking our church members to observe maximum safety and follow all guidelines while celebrating Christmas. General instructions like wearing of masks and gloves while visiting church have been already given to priests as well as members of the church. One of the important changes this year would be that the church will be reaching out to the sick and needy, even senior citizens with priests performing blessings and prayer service will be visiting their homes instead of calling them to church. This would be done to ensure all-round safety,” he said. Sumantaroy also urged people to not gather in large numbers for prayers in church.

Reaching out to those who have lost their jobs post-lockdown, Sumantaroy said, “A lot of labourers and people in private sector have lost their jobs, loved ones to the pandemic. The church has made an appeal to people, who are blessed with resources to share some with the lesser privileged,” he added.

Most churches in city have cut down the Christmas Eve service timings to hold early evening prayers rather than midnight masses. Despite the district administration relaxing night curfew on the eve of Christmas, churches maintained health guidelines.