Churches mostly empty for Orthodox Easter due to virus rules

MOSCOW (AP) — The holiest day of the year for Orthodox Christians was reserved and glum in many countries where churches were closed to worshipers for Easter services because of restrictions to suppress the spread of the coronavirus. From Moscow to Addis Ababa, believers were either banned from attending Sunday services or urged to stay home and watch them on national television broadcasts. In Georgia, where some churches remained open, some worshipers went through a long ordeal to attend services that began late Saturday night in order to conform with a  nationwide curfew — arriving at churches before 9 p.m. and required to stay until 6 a.m. Serbia’s curfew was even more strict, lasting 84 hours from Friday afternoon until Tuesday morning.