The happiest day in the Christian calendar will have to be celebrated with caution in 2020. Some churches will be celebrating online, others will put up big screens outside their halls…

Thousands throng Kestopur’s Emmanuel Church on Christmas. “It gets so crowded that one can’t even cross the street up to a kilometer away. Police and volunteers struggle to control the crowd,” says Sudipendra Mondal, a member of the largest church in Kestopur Christian para, who is closely involved with the running of the institution.

This is exactly what they fear this year and is the reason why they have decided to shut down the church after 2pm on December 25. “Otherwise, devotees will keep coming all evening and social distancing will go for a toss.”

Last year, the City Living Assembly got such a big gathering for Christmas they moved out of their regular premises at CK Block’s IPHE hall and into Nazrul Tirtha. “This time, we are back to IPHE. The capacity here is about 150 people and we are expecting about 120 to show up. To enforce distancing, we shall erect a big screen in the driveway so some people can sit out there in the open too,” says pastor Jennith Israel.

Like every other institution, churches have been holding online classes since the lockdown, but most of them began offline classes a few months ago. “We wanted to resume offline classes in January but devotees urged us to start sooner so we began three weeks ago,” says Israel. Meanwhile, they have purchased professional cameras and editing software and created a studio in his DLF New Town Heights apartment to continue streaming online. “We are getting over a thousand views daily and have started doing a lot of sermons in Bengali, which are being followed even from Bangladesh.”

Pastor Purnendu Sinha was eager to resume offline classes. “Attention is not focussed during online sessions,” he says. Their classes have shifted out of IPHE hall to a new church building behind the airport. “We have many Salt Lake-based devotees who are now coming by app cabs. We have a capacity of about 100 people and around 70 are showing up every Sunday. We are sanitising the space the best we can.”

At Emmanuel Church, a bench for five is being occupied by no more than two. “And instead of handing out hymn books, we are projecting the hymns on a big screen for all to follow,” says Mondal.

“I am feeling very uncomfortable asking people not to come to church on Christmas but there is no choice,” says reverend Sujoy Sarkar of the same church. Sarkar and his family were down with Covid-19 after the church had reopened after the lockdown.