Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9974-3768
Abstract
Religious practices can conjure distinctive ideas and images for different groups of people, especially religious festivals, which are signs of congregations, celebrations, and contentment, usually to mark the completion of religious obligations. All major religions celebrate notable festivals to mark important events and religious obligations that bring together followers of that faith. The year 2020 will be remembered as unique in the history of all faiths. As a result of the COVID-19 crisis, governments across the world announced compulsory measures such as ‘social distancing’ and ‘lockdown’ to avoid the spread of Coronavirus. Thus, all major religions either cancelled or reduced religious festivals to stop the spread of the virus in and through faith communities. In turn, a new trend of virtual celebration became popular across the world. Coincidentally, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Islam all had major festivals in April 2020. This study offers case studies of religious festivals namely, Easter, Passover, Rama Navami, Vaisakhi, and Eid. It provides a narrative of the novel ways in which members of these faith groups celebrated these festivals during the pandemic.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Raja, Irfan; Dowson, Rev. Ruth; Shaikh, Abdul Basit; Cohen, Ivan; and Alotaibi, Nasser N.
(2025)
"Religious Festivals in the Age of ‘Lockdown’ and ‘Social Distancing’: A Comparative Study of Easter, Eid, Passover, Rama Navami, and Vaisakhi.,"
International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage:
Vol. 13:
Iss.
3, Article 11.
doi:https://doi.org/10.21427/yrr6-xn39
Available at:
https://arrow.tudublin.ie/ijrtp/vol13/iss3/11
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21427/yrr6-xn39