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Churches Suspend Worship Services In DC, Maryland And Virginia Over Coronavirus

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Episcopal churches throughout the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia area suspended worship services due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Bishops who oversee Episcopal congregations throughout the DMV said church buildings will be closed until March 25, The Washington Post reported. This includes Sunday worship services and weekday activities, Bishops Mariann Budde and Susan Goff said.

Services at the Washington National Cathedral will also be suspended, and a National Cathedral spokesman told WaPo that “the expectation is that buildings will be closed and empty of people.” The Cathedral, which is the second largest cathedral in the United States of America, did not yet respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The last time churches canceled all services over health concerns was for the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, bishops said.

Sixty-year-old Budde is in charge of 88 congregations in Maryland and the District, according to WaPo. Goff, who oversees the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, said 179 Virginia churches will close.

Budde said she made the decision to suspend services after consultations with other national church leaders, reading guidance from the Centers for Disease Control, and receiving anxious texts from priests about worship guidelines.

“They were feeling increasingly anxious,” Budde told WaPo. “The confusion was getting higher by the minute.”

The Episcopal Church contains many elderly people and Episcopal leaders do not want to put these elderly at risk, Budde added.

“The consequences are enormous financially,” she said. “We can’t put money first. If the church put money first, shame on us. We have to do what’s right. We’re part of the social fabric. We need to be part of the communal response to stem the tide of this virus.”

The National Cathedral will stream services on Sundays with no live audience. Budde will preside on one Sunday while national denomination bishop Michael Curry will preside on another.

News of the DMV church closures came after a D.C. rector confirmed Sunday that he had been diagnosed with coronavirus.  Christ Church spokesman Rob Volmer confirmed to the DCNF Monday that about 550 parishioners from the greater D.C. area who attended a March 1 service at the Georgetown church are in voluntary self-quarantine through March 16.