The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted religion in various ways, including the cancellation of the worship services of various faiths and the closure of Sunday schools, as well as the cancellation of pilgrimages, ceremonies and festivals. Many churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples have offered worship through livestream amidst the pandemic, or held interactive sessions on Zoom.
Relief wings of religious organisations have dispatched disinfection supplies, powered air-purifying respirators, face shields, gloves, coronavirus nucleic acid detection reagents, ventilators, patient monitors, syringe pumps, infusion pumps, and food to affected areas. Other churches have offered free COVID-19 testing to the public. Adherents of many religions have gathered together to pray for an end to the COVID-19 pandemic, for those affected by it, as well as for wisdom for physicians and scientists to combat the disease.
Religions
Christianity
Response and impact According to a Gallup report by Frank Newport "the most dramatic result (in religion) has been the exceedingly quick shift of religious services from in-person to online worship." While for almost a hundred years, churches have used various communication methods to reach their audiences, such as radio, television and online media, Gallup says that the halting of in-person worship "is one of the most significant sudden disruptions in the practice of religion in U.S. history." A Pew Research report from March 2020 reported a change in respondents' religious habits due to the pandemic. More than half of respondents said that they have "prayed for an end to the spread of coronavirus," "attended services in person less often," and "watched religious services online or on TV instead of in person." Time magazine reported that drive-in church services have achieved a great level of attendance in the COVID-19 outbreak. As to whether the crisis had an effect on long-term personal religious life, 19% of Americans said that their faith has strengthened and only 3% said that it got worse.
In a survey conducted in late May–early June 2020 by the American Enterprise Institute, 60% of Americans said they feared that they or someone in their household might get COVID-19. Responses differed demographically, however; 69% of Black Protestants and 42% of White Evangelicals worried about infection. When it came to weighing the public health risks of returning to normal economic activity, a majority of Black Protestants (84%) and Hispanic Catholics (70%) said they would prioritize public health, while a majority of White Evangelicals (65%) and White Mainline Protestants and White Catholics (52%) prioritized the economy.
In the United Kingdom, Christian denominations including the Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, Reformed, and Presbyterian Churches, published guidelines on adapting worship in light of the pandemic.
In July 2020, North Point Ministries—which, before the pandemic, typically hosted 30,000 churchgoers every Sunday across its seven locations in the Atlanta, Georgia area—said it would only offer services digitally through the rest of the year. The church's founder said that contact tracing for coronavirus exposure would be impossible given the church's size.
On 30 November 2020, one of the pastors at the California megachurch Water of Life died of COVID-19. He had recently been leading outdoor services.
Food and medical assistance and social justice work World Council of Churches General Secretary Olav Fykse Tveit announced that, "This situation calls on our solidarity and accountability, mindfulness, care and wisdom... [as well as] for our signs of faith, hope and love". Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, some churches continue to operate their food pantries that are offering bags filled with meat and toilet paper rolls for families in need. The National Cathedral of the United States, which belongs to the Episcopal Church, donated over five-thousand N95 surgical masks to hospitals of Washington, D.C., which were in shortage during the COVID-19 pandemic. Other churches, such as the Church of the Highlands, an evangelical Christian megachurch, have offered free COVID-19 tests in their parking lots. Some chaplains, such as Father Benito Rodríguez Regueiro, have chosen to remain on call 24/7 for COVID-19 patients.
In April 2020 over 200 church and civil society organisations, including Caritas and the Jesuit Refugee Service, called on the government of Greece to restore access to asylum for refugees, especially the 42,000 stated to be "trapped" and living "in horrific conditions" in the Greek islands.
Social distancing
Many Episcopal and Catholic dioceses have recommended older Christians to stay at home rather than attending Mass on Sundays, which is usually required; many churches of all Christian denominations have made church services available via radio, online livestreaming or television while others have offered drive-in services in their church parking lots, some with guidelines on how to use car functions to respond to the service. Some Christians are using online apps, which contain prayers and daily devotionals, to remain engaged with their faith.
Many Christians traditionally observe the Christian penitential season of Lent through the abstinence from meat on Fridays, especially Roman Catholics, Methodists and Anglicans; the requirement to observe this custom was lifted by some Roman Catholic bishops amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, which partially coincided with Lent in 2020. The liturgies normally held during Holy Week (especially those on Palm Sunday, Spy Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday), the last week of Lent, were canceled by many churches belonging to mainstream Christian denominations, including the Anglican, Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Moravian, and Reformed Churches. These included the Royal Maundy charity service done by the monarch of the United Kingdom on Maundy Thursday.
Referencing the Christian doctrine of the Body of Christ, Anglican priest Jonathan Warren Pagán wrote that "Gathered worship in word and sacrament is therefore not an optional add-on for Christians" though the COVID-19 pandemic rendered it necessary to move to online formats for the common good. He encouraged the practice of Spiritual Communion amidst the pandemic (especially during the Anglican service of Morning Prayer), which has been used by Christians during times of plagues, as well as during times of persecution, both of which have prevented Christians from gathering on the Lord's Day to celebrate the Eucharist. Methodist clergy, as well as Pope Francis, also suggested that the faithful practice Spiritual Communion during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The celebration of Saint Patrick's Day, a feast day celebrating the arrival of Christianity in Ireland, on 17 March 2020 was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, though services were still held in some churches and some parades still commenced.
While many churches canceled Easter services to comply with social-distancing guidelines, others planned to continue normally. On 11 April 2020, the day before Easter Sunday, the president of the American conservative think tank the Claremont Institute, tweeted for "resistance and civil disobedience to an unconstitutional lockdown" so people could enjoy "free exercise of religion."
Digital church services Due to social-distancing guidelines, many churches needed to find alternatives to normal face-to-face church services and have turned to digital church. On Easter Sunday, Pope Francis livestreamed mass from an empty St. Peter's Basilica in Rome while the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby broadcast his sermon from the kitchen of his flat in London. Many local churches throughout the world would look into ways of digitizing church practices, though some debated how certain liturgical practices such as communion could or could not be performed online. In rural churches where access to technology was more limited, some local churches needed to be more creative, including practices such as drive-by processions of the Blessed Sacrament. Some studies in digital theology have highlighted an increased interest in watching and participating in online church services under lockdown. The interconnectivity promoted by digital technologies has helped promote the ability for individuals to participate in religious activities despite physical distance, including those who previously may have never set foot in a church. However, other studies have highlighted that Christians who regularly attended physical church services have been less keen to participate online, especially among millennials. By the fourth Easter of the pandemic, numerous churches had long since incorporated on-line services into their regular schedule. Although Zoom meetings and the like well-suited for meetings such as Bible study, and Millennials and younger demographic cohorts are accustomed to on-line forms of the fellowship, the number of Catholics attending (required) weekly Mass has been estimated to have declined from 22% in 2019 to 17% by 2023.
By denomination Lutheranism Lutheran Disaster Response, the relief wing of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has provided supplies to China, whence the disease originated; these include disinfection supplies, powered air-purifying respirators, face shields, gloves, coronavirus nucleic acid detection reagents, ventilators, patient monitors, syringe pumps, infusion pumps, and food to affected areas.
As most supplies are being sent to developed countries, Lutheran World Relief is working to send resources to Africa, where Allyson Bear says "widespread poverty and crowded urban slums put Africans at extreme risk." At Lutheran World Relief clinics in Nairobi, where multiple months of HIV medication are provided to patients, people were educated on the importance of handwashing and protective equipment has been repurposed to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lutheran Disaster Response is supporting congregational feeding ministries to "do the critical work of providing those who are in need in their communities with food." ELCA is also sending food, medical and essential supply deliveries to New Orleans, Southern California, Italy, Palestine and Sierra Leone and working with the Lutheran World Foundation and the ACT Alliance.
Anglicanism The Church of England, the state church, as well as other ecclesiastical provinces of the Anglican Communion in the world such as the Church in Wales, and the Scottish Episcopal Church, suspended in-person worship amidst the pandemic.
The General Synod (Remote Meetings) Measure 2020 (No. 3) (originally the General Synod (Remote Meetings) (Temporary Standings Orders) Measure 2020) is a measure passed by the General Synod of the Church of England enabling remote meetings. It was passed in a special one-day sitting of the General Synod in September 2020. The measure was amended by the Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure 2024 so that the hybrid meeting arrangements became permanent.
The Archbishop of Canterbury led a virtual Eucharist that was broadcast on thirty-nine BBC stations. The Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin and Bishop of Glendalough of the United Diocese of Dublin and Glendalough Most Reverend Michael Jackson has: A Prayer in the Time of the Coronavirus. In Time magazine, Anglican theologian and University of Oxford professor N. T. Wright characterised the COVID-19 pandemic as one that focuses on the Christian theme of lamentation, in which both God and humanity mourn together:
The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, which belongs to the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of New York, volunteered itself to be turned into a field hospital for coronavirus patients, which will be cared for by Samaritan's Purse health workers, who have offered their services. It will house over two hundred patients with the ailment.