Hundreds of Christian parishioners went to churches in ex-Soviet Georgia to attend Orthodox Easter Vigil despite a state of emergency and calls from the government and doctors to stay home amid outbreak of the coronavirus.
A believer wearing a protective mask holds a candle outside a church during an Orthodox Easter service, amid the coronavirus disease outbreak in Marneuli, Georgia April 18, 2020. Picture taken April 18, 2020. REUTERS/Irakli Gedenidze
Crowds were unusually small everywhere compared to the tens of thousands who normally attend this service every year. Holy Fire had been brought to Georgia on Saturday night by a charter flight from Jerusalem, where the ceremony in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which symbolizes the resurrection of Jesus after his death on the cross, was attended only by Christian clergymen for the first time in centuries.
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