On Sunday, footage of Orthodox priests in the Romanian city of Cluj giving communion to a long line of the faithful using a shared spoon was published by a local news platform.
It wasn’t the first such footage to appear, but coming a day after the country imposed tough new measures to try to halt the spread of coronavirus, it hit a nerve.
As millions across the country largely stayed inside to avoid the spread of the virus, the actions of the priests seemed to risk causing the opposite.
“Many priests have not understood what this is about, and given the fact that they didn’t have an order from the Patriarch they proceeded as usual,” said Bogdan Tanase, head of Romania’s Doctors’ Alliance. “It will have an impact. If you have 100 people, the probability that one is infected is high,” he added.
While the Romanian Orthodox Church had announced “exceptional measures” on February 28th, with worshipers able to ask priests to use their own spoon to receive communion, it wasn’t a requirement.
The actions of the priests highlight the often uneven response to the current pandemic, in Romania and elsewhere in the world, though this is changing as authorities announced tighter and tighter measures.
Source: EN
