Easter - Page 4

At the end of Monday’s press briefing, a costumed individual dressed as the Easter bunny entered the room carrying a basket of candy.

President Joe Biden spent his Easter weekend at the presidential retreat at Camp David, but kept everything he and his family did a secret.

BOCHNIA, Poland (AP) – Polish hospitals struggled over the Easter weekend with a massive number of people infected with COVID-19 following a huge surge in infections across Central and Eastern Europe in recent weeks.

State troopers in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut joined forces to make Easter special for a little girl who recently lost her parents.

VATICAN CITY — Christianity’s most joyous feast day was celebrated worldwide with faithful sitting far apart in pews and singing choruses of “Hallelujah” through face coverings on a second Easter Sunday conditioned by pandemic precautions.

Police were volubly expelled from a Polish church in Alberta, Canada after disrupting an Easter service, with the pastor denouncing them as “Gestapo Nazi communist fascists” and “psychopaths”.

Footage widely shared on social media shows London police interrupting a Good Friday service at a Polish church in London and threatening Christians with fines unless they dispersed.

Christians in San Pedro Cutud — a neighborhood in Pampanga, Philippines — canceled its annual Good Friday crucifixions for the second year in a row in response to federal limits on gatherings to curb the spread of Chinese coronavirus.

CESKE BUDEJOVICE, Czech Republic (AP) — A revival of an old Easter tradition has gone ahead in southern Czech Republic amid tight coronavirus restrictions.

JERUSALEM — Christians in the Holy Land are marking Good Friday this year amid signs the coronavirus crisis is winding down, with religious sites open to limited numbers of faithful but none of the mass pilgrimages usually seen in the Holy Week leading up to Easter.

The government of the Philippines will forcibly close Catholic churches in Manila if priests hold Easter masses next week in violation of a federal mandate banning religious gatherings in the city to curb the spread of coronavirus, it announced on Tuesday.

Greek churches in Thessaloniki have been accused of making secret lists of worshipers to help them get around Wuhan coronavirus restrictions and kiss church icons.

BERLIN (AP) – Germany on Sunday implemented tighter border controls on its frontiers with the Czech Republic and Austria’s Tyrol province in an effort to stem the spread of more contagious coronavirus variants.

Simply by taking a stand, Eric Dreiband said, the DOJ had encouraged several local governments to back down from extreme coronavirus measures that discriminated against religious institutions.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock thanked Muslims for their Ramadan “sacrifice” on St George’s Day, but made no mention of the English national day itself.

CAIRO (AP) — Pope Tawadros II, the spiritual leader of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Christians, has held Easter services in an empty monastery in the desert amid coronavirus restrictions which kept the faithful from gathering at churches and monasteries across the country.

President Donald Trump criticized Democrats for their recent turn toward the anti-Israel left on Saturday, during a White House press briefing on the coronavirus pandemic.

JERUSALEM (AP) – A small group of Christian clerics celebrated the Holy Fire ceremony at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on Saturday as the coronavirus pandemic prevented worshippers from taking part in the ancient and mysterious ritual.

Cartels responsible for most of the violence in Mexico took to social media over Easter weekend to promote their food basket distribution efforts across the country.

The South China Morning Post (SCMP) on Monday reported China’s underground churches used digital resources to commemorate the Easter holiday during a time of coronavirus emergency and heightened government repression.

The Kremlin claimed Russia had no serious problem with the Wuhan coronavirus just a few weeks ago, but on Saturday it admitted a “huge influx” of patients is flooding into Moscow hospitals and the situation in Russia’s big cities is “quite tense because the number of sick people is growing.”

Christians in Sri Lanka were forced to celebrate Easter on Sunday at home, leaving churches empty the first year after a series of jihadist suicide bombings killed and dismembered 253 people in six different locations.

All suffering is a “mystery,” writes the newly acquitted and released Cardinal George Pell in an Easter message, but Christianity offers tools to embrace it and make it fruitful.

Hollywood star Barbra Streisand managed to work in a plug for her single “Don’t Lie to Me” from her 2018 album “Walls” in a rant claiming that President Donald Trump is directly responsible for the more than 20,000 deaths in the United States due to coronavirus.

A six-year-old fighting cancer in Arizona is making Easter baskets for needy children who are in quarantine.

(AP) — Christians around the world celebrated Easter Sunday isolated in their homes by the coronavirus while pastors preached the faith’s joyous news of Christ’s resurrection to empty pews. One Florida church drew a large turnout for a drive-in service in a parking lot.

A photo of a massive cross was reposted in time for Easter, and is being taken as a beacon of hope during the coronavirus pandemic.

Mega popstar Mariah Carey and director Tyler Perry joined Pastor Joel Osteen for Lakewood Church’s virtual Easter service on Sunday, providing a boost of star power after a planned performance by Kanye West’s Sunday Service chorus was nixed reportedly due to coronavirus-related concerns.

First Lady Melania Trump wished all Americans a happy Easter Sunday in an all-green ensemble with crocodile and snakeskin accents. 

“This Easter will be much different than others because in many cases, we’ll be separated physically only from our churches,” Trump said.

Jerusalem — A handful of priests celebrated Easter on Sunday at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was crucified and resurrected.

The Easter Vigil Mass was celebrated at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC, Saturday evening.

Student faith organizations at Harvard University will be celebrating Easter Sunday and Passover on video conferences and live-streams this year as a result of the ongoing Chinese virus pandemic.

Abilene Christian University’s choir went viral this week when it posted a rendition of “The Lord Bless You and Keep You.” The video, which stitched together virtual performances from 500 vocalists, was the choir’s way of celebrating this year’s Easter holiday during the ongoing Wuhan coronavirus pandemic.

Queen Elizabeth II has delivered what is believed to be the first-ever Easter message of her 68-year reign, offering a message of hope to people confined to their homes throughout the holiday by the coronavirus pandemic.

Officials in Kentucky will document the license plate numbers of individuals attending mass gatherings over Easter weekend and turn the information over to health officials, who will require the individuals to self-quarantine for 14 days, Gov. Andy Beshear (D) announced Friday.