Religious organisations return to worship

President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday announced that religious organisations will be able to open when level 3 commences on June 1.

Ramaphosa said only 50 people will be allowed to enter a church at one time.

“Social distancing will have to be observed and all worshippers must wear face masks in line with the current regulations,” he said. This has to be done to reduce the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus between the congregants.

“All religious regulations should put protocols in place for thoroughly cleaning and sanitising places of worship, before and after services.”

The president urged faith organisations to take precautions in keeping their congregants safe at all costs.

“Our faith communities must ensure that any religious rituals that carry even the slightest possibility of exposing worshippers to risk, should be avoided and where they form an essential part of religious practice that sanitation is paramount.”

Ramaphosa stated that religious leaders will be recognised as essential front-line workers for the purpose of spiritual counselling to members of their organisations.

Etienne Garnett-Bennet, a pastor from Church Unlimited Nelspruit said, “We are still discussing what we have to in order to open the church up and comply to regulations. It will be difficult for us to have only 50 congregants as we are a big church and have many congregants. We urge the elderly to continue streaming the online services as they have done for the past two months, as they are more vulnerable”.

Alfred Kariuke of the Methodist Church of South Africa, told Lowvelder that the church will reopen on June 7.

“We are going to have two services as we have about 100 people in the congregation. We have two different cell groups and they will come to church according to their groups.”

Past Sibongile Gondwe, of Centre of Life Christian Church, said, “I am very happy and thankful to the president for allowing people to go back to church. Churches need to be very cautious about safety measures because if not, they will spread the virus. All protocols should be observed”.

Past Simon Mdluli of the Alliance Church of South Africa, said, “All pastors and church leaders must clean the buildings and use required chemicals to fight all germs and viruses.

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On the day of the service, sanitisers should be available for congregants. The church must make sure that all the singers and speakers have their own microphones to avoid sharing.

Larger churches should make sure that they stick to only 50 people in the building at a time. They can have multiple services a day to compensate for all the congregants”.

Hindu Priest Kannaih Shrinivasan told Lowvelder that the temple will open on June 1. “We will have a prayer on Monday, but only about 20 people will be allowed to enter the temple.

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We will first disinfect the temple and make sure that it is clean. We will provide sanitisers and water and bacterial soap for them to wash their hands. We encourage everyone to wear masks as the president instructed.

The other devotees can join with Zoom in order to avoid any spread of Covid-19 in the temple.”