COVID-19 deaths of Serbian clerics highlight virus worries

As coronavirus cases surge globally, the COVID-19 deaths of two senior Serbian Orthodox Church clerics — one who died weeks after presiding over the funeral of the other — are raising questions about whether some religious institutions are doing enough to slow the spread of the virus.

More reports are emerging about people who attended religious services and contract the virus — some after parishioners seemed to ignore the pleas of church and health officials officials to wear masks, practice social distancing and other steps to combat the virus that’s killed nearly 1.4 million people worldwide.

In Belgrade, many mourners paying their respects Saturday to Serbian Orthodox Church Patriarch Irinej ignored precautions and some kissed the glass shield covering the patriarch’s body, despite warnings not to do so from Serbia’s epidemiologists.

That scene unfolded three weeks after the 90-year-old Irinej led prayers at the funeral of Bishop Amfilohije in nearby Montenegro, an event attended by thousands where many kissed the bishop’s remains in an open casket.

The highly publicized episodes happened as Serbia reported thousands of newly confirmed infections daily in the country of 7 million and as the government in recent days has tightened measures to hold off the virus. As the country’s health system strains to treat more and more people for the virus, some patients in Belgrade hospitals with less serious conditions are being transferred to hospitals elsewhere.

Those same kinds of tough decisions and terrible predicaments are playing out all across the U.S.

California was set to enact a nighttime curfew starting Saturday night in an attempt to keep people away from parties, social mixing and drinking. The state’s curfew will run from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew for most of the state’s residents and last through at least Dec. 21.

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In Texas, overflowing morgues prompted the state’s National Guard to send 36-member team to El Paso to help morgue workers handle the increasing number of COVID-19 deaths

In North Carolina, the Charlotte Observer reported that three more people who attended large events at the United House of Prayer for All People in Charlotte last month died — boosting the total deaths linked to the church’s events to 12.

And in Michigan, 61 pastors at Grand Rapids-area churches decided to stop holding in-person worship services, weddings and other big gatherings, largely in response to the pleas of the state’s health care workers

In Illinois, the Archdiocese of Chicago announced that clergy and bereavement ministers won’t be required to attend graveside services if they are worried that more than 10 people could show up.