There is no evidence that church gatherings are super-spreader events and, if the government decided to “disadvantage” Easter weekend services with new regulations, religious leaders would turn to the courts, according to the SA National Christian Forum.
Cancelling or reducing the numbers for Easter church services this year is an insult and an attack on the Christian community, forum president Bishop Marothi Mashashane told Sowetan’s sister publication Sunday Times Daily.
The forum represents 171 churches.
Mashashane said the SANCF would “immediately” approach the courts to set aside “any regulation that disadvantages the religious gatherings during Easter weekend”.
“Our position is still based on government’s double standards when coming to implementation of their own regulations; this proves a lack of consistency,” he said.
With Easter – considered one of the most important celebrations on the Christian calendar – coming this week, religious organisations said they were waiting to see if the government would tighten lockdown regulations. Last year, due to stringent lockdown regulations, churches had to shut their doors.
The Sunday Times reported at the weekend that the government was considering allowing outdoor gatherings of up to 5,000 people and indoor gatherings of up to 1,000 to accommodate religious gatherings over Easter.
Two senior sources privy to discussions that took place in the national coronavirus command council this past week told the paper the government was also considering restricting or barring alcohol sales over Easter and banning interprovincial travel to limit the movement of people between provinces.
President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to meet provincial premiers today after which deliberations would be taken to the cabinet for a final decision.
Bishop Malusi Mpumlwana from the SA Council of Churches (SACC) said they would continue to be committed to driving down the infection rate. It represents 43 church organisations and Christian NGOs.
Mpumlwana said it was the first to call for a lockdown in March last year. He said churches had developed “norms, standards and guidelines” to manage their congregations during the pandemic.
“The churches are saying that they would like to have for Easter, the ability to have half the size of square metres of their church. For example, if your church is 100m², it should have 50 people. If it is 500m², it should have 250 people.”
Mpumlwana said mega churches under the SACC that have auditoriums for 6,000 had requested to have 1,000 members attend services.
“The super-spreaders are the funerals and not the church services... because of the emotions, the hugging and crying, the eating and feeding and drinking of teas at funerals. Those things don’t happen at a regular morning church service.”
The biggest annual Easter pilgrimage, to Moria by the Zion Christian Church members, was called off last year, days after lockdown was announced.
The secretary for Bishop Barnabas Lekganyane said he would look at the questions sent on Wednesday afternoon and discuss it with Lekganyane. At the time of publication, no response was forthcoming.
Bishop Mosa Sono from Grace Bible Church in Pimville, Soweto, also expressed his disappointment about the limit on the number of people allowed to attend church services. He said interfaith leaders made presentations to Ramaphosa, and the command council and the officials from Cogta last week Wednesday and were hoping they would be “favourably considered”.
The estimated membership at the church in Soweto is about 10,000.
Sono said Grace Bible Church will go ahead with its Easter services across various platforms, but would ensure they do not break any Covid-19 regulations.
Enoch Mthembu from the Nazareth Baptist Church, better known as the Shembe Church, said even if the government imposed further restrictions, they would abide by them. Mthembu said they had an estimated membership of about 9m.
Rhema Family Church said it would not disobey any laws, specifically regarding the Covid-19 regulations. “We will always respect what the government has put in place and abide by whatever the government has implemented,” pastor Ray McCauley said.
“Our priority is, and will remain, the safety of our congregation and curbing the spread of the virus.”
Epidemiologist Prof Salim Abdool Karim last week said the government should move SA to alert level 2 before the upcoming Easter holidays as a precautionary measure. He said he was “deeply concerned” about gatherings across all religious groups.
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