Pune: With Christmas arriving in next few days, churches in Pune city have issued a list of strict guidelines to celebrate the festival. To safeguard the care of attendees, Christian denominations have set some precautionary measures ahead of celebrating Christmas.

The Bishop of Pune recently has issued a circular of precautionary measures. Below are the SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures) ahead of the happy festival:

This year, most churches will finish with the midnight mass by 10 pm and the attendance in the masses will be as per the government’s directives.

Wearing masks will be mandatory for all.

Kissing, shaking hands, embracing in the church should be avoided

A limitation of one-third of the capacity of a church, with attendees three feet away from each other.

Holy Communion will be placed on the worshippers’ hands.

There will be three or four masses at some churches.

There will also be a gap of half-an hour between masses to allow for proper sanitisation of the churches.

Not more than 100 will be allowed to attend the mass at one time to avoid large congregations and masses will be held at different times.

Bishop of Pune, Thomas Dabre said, “We feel that it is a spiritual union with Jesus Christ. Without spiritual convenience with Jesus, for us, the celebrations are not so important. Because it is a spiritual celebration of union with Jesus Christ, that is why we're celebrating it joyfully.”

“Spirituality is not only communal with God but it is also communal with fellow human being. So Christmas for us is to love fellow humans, forgive them, to renew friendship, to have good relations with fellow human beings and third is that there are a lot of people who are needy. People are facing number of problems amid the pandemic. I have decided and told the members of the association that these three four days of Christmas, help as many people as you can. Do not turn anybody away. Where I'm living, anybody who comes to me for help will not go empty handed. Because I want everybody to have good for 3-4 days of Christmas,” he informed.

Amid the restrictions, the churches can feel the joy and enthusiasm of the festival in the community and are looking forward for Xmas.