By Kostas Onisenko
The Moscow Patriarchate, through the head of the Department for External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Hilarion, advised Russian believers to avoid pilgrimage visits abroad during the Easter period because of the risk of transmission of the coronavirus.
Speaking to the Russian channel Russia24, the Metropolitan said that “I do not recommend anyone now to travel abroad, even for pilgrimage. Now we have to sit at home and go to the nearby temple.”
He said that the time for pilgrimage visits will come when the quarantine measures are relaxed and “the deadly virus” subsides.
Instead, Metropolitan Hilarion said, if one really wants to go on a pilgrimage, one can go somewhere in Russia.