Zurich. In a telephone conference on Monday morning, Jean-Luc Schneider and the leaders of the New Apostolic District Churches in Europe discussed an exhaustive catalogue of measures aimed at containing the corona pandemic. Following are the most important results.

• All divine services and other Church activities in all districts and congregations throughout Europe will be cancelled until Thursday, 2 April 2020.

• Until then, even funerals will only be permitted at the cemetery or crematorium, but not in any New Apostolic Church buildings.

• Urgent pastoral care visits, for example, deathbed visits or visits to the relatives of such members, may still take place within an appropriate framework.

It is a great concern of the District Apostles to continue offering divine services and pastoral care to all Church members during this uncertain time. For this reason, they will ensure that video divine services will be conducted in their District Churches on 22 and 29 March 2020. These will be transmitted by IPTV, YouTube livestream, and telephone. Although these divine services will include the Lord’s Prayer and the proclamation of the absolution, they will not incorporate the celebration of Holy Communion.

The District Apostles will decide on all the remaining details concerning these video divine services, and will communicate them throughout their working areas.

A further telephone conference between the European District Apostles and the Chief Apostle has been scheduled to take place in two weeks, namely on Monday, 30 March. At that point, the latest developments of the situation will be reassessed and the next steps decided.