Churches reopened on Sunday, May 24th for the first time after the corona outbreak but several other churches waited out another week to reopen.
Churches were allowed to reopen after May 18 after signing the measures guided by the government in the "Protocol with the Protestant, Evangelical, and Anglican churches."
Anna Pellerito of the Pentecostal Elim Source of Life church in Sesto San Giovanni, Milano shared that her church described the situation of church attendance.
"Like several churches throughout the country, has adopted the method of reservations made directly on the site, with a special application that updates the number of places available as they are booked," Pellerito explained.
With social distancing still having to be enforced, congregation members are avoiding handshakes and hugs and strictly utilizing masks.
"In addition to our words, our eyes have become a tool to express all the affection and love that binds us to each other," Pellerito said.
Loredana Cappello of the Pentecostal Evangelical Church of Seriate, Bergamo expressed the feeling of reunion after the unprecedented pandemic, "..the return to the place of worship was a mixture of feelings between joy and pain."
"Our days were marked by ambulance sirens and funeral cars, so fear tried to overwhelm us. But we went back to church precisely to closely strengthen our faith in unity and, following the safety procedures, we started again with a new push, wanting to focus on the truly essential things of our life in Christ," Cappello shared.
The words of our sisters and brothers in Christ in Italy who were able to return to church earlier helps church-goers in America to visualize what returning to church after the pandemic in the future would be like.
Although church gathering still looks distant from "normal," Nina Fiore Schaafsma, a congregation member of the Punto Luce church in San Giuliano Milanese said, "All this leads us to express great gratitude to God, to recognize once again that belonging to the body of Christ is a great blessing."
