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Lockdown Weighs Heavily on Orthodox Christians During Easter

Associated Press

   ATHENS, GREECE - For Orthodox Christians, this is normally a time of
   reflection and mourning followed by joyful release, of centuries-old
   ceremonies steeped in symbolism and tradition.

   But this year, Easter -- by far the most significant religious holiday
   for the world's roughly 300 million Orthodox -- has essentially been
   canceled.

   There will be no Good Friday processions behind the flower-bedecked
   symbolic bier of Christ, to the haunting hymn of the Virgin Mary's
   lament for the death of her son. No hugs and kisses, or joyous
   proclamations of "Christ is risen!" as church bells ring at midnight on
   Holy Saturday. No family gatherings over lamb roasted whole on a spit
   for an Easter lunch stretching into the soft spring evening.

   As the coronavirus rampages around the globe, claiming tens of
   thousands of lives, governments have imposed lockdowns in a desperate
   bid to halt the pandemic. Businesses have been closed and church doors
   shut to prevent the virus's insidious spread.

   For some, the restrictions during Easter are particularly tough.

   "When there was freedom and you didn't go somewhere, it didn't bother
   you," said Christina Fenesaki, while shopping in Athens' main meat
   market for lamb -- to cook in the oven at home in the Greek capital
   instead of on a spit in her ancestral village. "But now that we have
   the restrictions, it bothers you a lot. It's heavy."

   In Greece, where more than 90 percent of the population is baptized
   into the Orthodox Church, the government has been at pains to stress
   that this year's Easter cannot be normal.

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