Holy week goes digital due to covid19

The Anglican Church will go fully digital for Holy Week this year.

Bishop Claude Berkley told Sunday Newsday all services from April 5 to 12 would be streamed online. He added that there would be a maximum of ten people present and no congregation members would be allowed to attend.

He said the Palm Sunday Service would be held at the Trinity Cathedral, Port of Spain, and the church was arranging to have it streamed on its Facebook page, The Anglican Outlook, as well as have it televised. From Monday to Wednesday, different regions would take turns hosting services.

He explained there were four regions, Tobago, South, North West and North East. The latter two would be consolidated and the three areas would have services by the archdeacons of the regions.

On Holy Thursday at the cathedral, there would be the mass of the Chrism but on Good Friday services would be held at various parish churches. In this case, each parish would arrange separate streaming services for their congregations to hear the stations of the cross, the celebration of the Lord’s Passion, or the Seven Last Words from the Cross.

The Easter Vigil would take place on Glorious Saturday at the cathedral as well as the Easter Sunday mass which he is also hoping to have televised.

Asked how the church was ministering to its people during this time of separation due to covid19 restriction, Berkley said, “Right now the ministry is by telephone, by technological communication, and where there is need for direct engagement, that would happen observing the social distancing and other protective measures.”

At the moment, plans for the Roman Catholic Church are less definitive. Father Robert Christo, vicar for communication for the Archdiocese of Port of Spain said the church leaders had a temporary plan based on instructions from the Vatican decree, the Congregation of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

He said they were meeting every Monday on Zoom, a cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, to discuss this and other issues and would make a decision on how to proceed with Holy Week soon. However, he said there was a possibility of everything being held at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Port of Spain with just the priests and the use a virtual platform for the population to participate.

“Whatever we are doing we are not going to risk lives. As the decree said, it’s very likely it would be celebrated without the blessing of the faithful. It’s not decided on but we are looking to see how best we could include everybody.”

He added that the situation in TT could change by that time so they would wait and see how things unfold and adjust accordingly.

With regard to ministries at the parish level, Christo said each priest was responsible for the spiritual, social, psychological, physical, and theological needs of their parishioners without jeopardising lives.

For example, he said he usually had bread delivered for migrants but they all stayed at a distance and ensured the necessary health protocols, as well as guidelines from the Monday meetings, were carried out.

He added that the church was not considering distributing pre-packaged communion or any other alternative to distributing communion at this time as they did not want to risk spreading covid19 through touch. He also suggested Catholics check the Catholic News, catholictt.org or tcntt.com for updates.