As places of worship prepare to reopen after more than three months of lockdown, the Guardian photographer David Levene and our religion correspondent, Harriet Sherwood, chart the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on faith communities in the UK
It started with a tap on the microphone. Then a voice echoed around the west London housing estate: “We are passing through the valley of the shadow of death, but we are not alone.” It was Sunday 19 April, when the Covid-19 pandemic was at its most intense in London and the earth was shifting beneath our feet.
The Rev Pat Allerton, a Church of England vicar, pressed a button on his phone to play Judy Collins’ powerful rendition of Amazing Grace, and something extraordinary happened.
27 April: The Rev Pat Allerton prays for NHS workers outside University College hospital in London during the peak of the pandemic in the UK.
19 April: Locked-down residents of Colville Square in west London look out of their windows to hear Allerton’s prayers from the streets below. Right: People stop to listen to Allerton’s message on a Sunday afternoon as churches remained closed.
11 April: At 8pm on Holy Saturday, the Rev Canon Aidan Platten steps out of his home to light the paschal candle from the Easter fire outside Norwich Cathedral. For only the second time in its 900-year history, the cathedral is closed.
24 May: Pushpa Chaudhary, 85, prays to a Hindu shrine in her porch at home in Southall, London. Her son Vivek says: “She’s asking the gods to protect the house, protect all the family and to protect everybody at this time.” There has been a shrine in the porch since the family moved to the house in 1970. “Everyone has added their touches to it,” says Vivek, who contributed a Spurs scarf.
13 April: A Sikh devotee prays outside the closed Guru Nanak Gurdwara in Smethwick during the Sikh festival of Vaisakhi.
13 April: An NHS driver stops his van to offer a prayer as he passes the closed Guru Nanak Gurdwara in Smethwick during the Sikh festival of Vaisakhi.
3 May: The Rev Helen Chandler conducts Sunday service in her garden outside St Peter and St John, an Anglican church near Lowestoft, Suffolk. The outdoor altar was blessed by a bishop, allowing Chandler to conduct services here while the church remains closed. “I’ve spoken with more neighbours in the past month or so than I had before,” she says.
30 April: Sophie Matkovits (second left) celebrates her batmitzvah with friends and family around the world via Zoom from her home in Finchley. “Judaism has always had to adapt,” Rabbi Miriam Berger tells the virtual gathering.
30 April: During lockdown, the yad (pointer) was passed from family to family as they held bar and batmitzvahs. Lynne, Sophie’s mother, picked up the yad from the front garden of another family, and after the ceremony she disinfected it and left it on the doorstep to be collected by a family celebrating a batmitzvah the following week.
4 May: Haredi men form a minyan – a quorum of 10 men required for Jewish worship – for shacharit (morning prayer). They congregate across neighbouring gardens in Stamford Hill, north London, in order to socially distance.
7 May: Because all synagogues are closed, members of the tight-knit Jewish community of Stamford Hill come together in their front gardens and on the roadside so they can form the minyan required for daily prayer.
7 May: In order to form a minyan, each participant must be able to hear the chazzan (person who leads the services).
7 May: Rabbi Daniel Epstein conducts a funeral at a Jewish cemetery in Waltham Abbey for a victim of Covid-19, broadcast via Zoom.
15 May: Raheema Caratella reads to her family from the Qur’an. Her family have been reading together every day during Ramadan.
15 May: Irhfan Mururajani leads his family in prayer at their home in Leicester during Ramadan. “This is the first time I’ve done the night prayer with a female member of my household,” he says. “The very first time we are praying as a whole family. It’s a lovely feeling.”
3 April: The Baitul Futuh mosque in Morden, the largest in western Europe, empty at Friday prayer time during the first full week of the lockdown.
20 May: Imam Faruq Siddiqi, the Muslim chaplain for the Royal London hospital in east London, prays in an empty consulting room during Ramadan.
16 May: Iftar meals are cooked and prepared for distribution from Saffron Kitchen in Leyton by the charity Supporting Humanity. In conjunction with the East London mosque, meals are delivered to NHS workers at the Royal London hospital.
20 May: Nurse Ayesha Khan breaks her fast with an iftar meal delivered by Serving Humanity and East London mosque. “My faith has definitely deepened” during the Covid-19 crisis, she says.
16 April: Father Rayner Wakeling, of St Silas church in King’s Cross, prepares to deliver a service to his parishioners via Facebook from his home. “I didn’t initially think I would do any live streaming. Certainly celebrating mass at home on my own was going to be really strange. [But] on Sunday something like 300 people watched on Facebook, compared to around 35 people who come to church each week. Well, I was amazed!”
5 June: A Ghanaian funeral ceremony takes place outside the home of a 59 year-old man who died in March. The undertakers brought his coffin to his home in Croydon so his family and friends could hold a religious ceremony on the roadside. “The deceased man was in our care for two months while the family waited in the hope that they could have a traditional funeral. I’ve seen people’s faith tested to the very limits,” says the funeral director Gary Valentine-Fuller.
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