Virus fears keep Orthodox Easter worshippers at home

More than 260 million Orthodox Christians celebrated Easter Sunday, with church leaders asking worshippers to stay at home to avoid spreading the novel coronavirus.

Orthodox Christians, the world's third largest group of Christian believers, this year celebrate Easter a week after Catholics and Protestants because they follow a different calendar.

Last week's Easter celebrations took place in empty churches while Pope Francis livestreamed his traditional message from the Vatican as the pandemic that has killed more than 150,000 made massed worship too risky.

Most Orthodox Christians will also skip traditional midnight services, even though Eastern Europe and the ex-Soviet Union where most live have relatively low numbers of confirmed cases of the virus so far.

Moscow Patriarch Kirill, who leads 150 million believers, has urged the faithful to pray at home and not go to church until he gives his blessing.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is dropping his usual attendance at an Easter service and will go to a chapel in the grounds of his residence outside Moscow.

In Moscow and the surrounding region, where most Russian COVID-19 cases are concentrated, churches will hold services behind closed doors with broadcasts online or on television.