Pressure on the British government to end the coronavirus lockdown is steadily growing, not least because every day it continues it inflicts a serious toll on the economy. The disruptions to everyday life it has caused also include the almost complete cessation of organised collective worship. Churches of every denomination, synagogues, mosques, gurdwaras and temples have all fallen quiet behind locked doors. This remarkable silence has happened with the blessing of the relevant religious authorities, who recognise that the deadly coronavirus can easily be transmitted wherever crowds may gather. “Thou shalt not kill” in this case translates as “Thou shalt not gather together in public”, which is a hard saying for people of faith whose main expression of it is through group activity.

Among those authorities are the leaderships of the Catholic and Anglican Churches. They have been criticised for it, but by and large their memberships have accepted the medicine while also looking for inventive ways to continue their religious observance. Online streaming of Mass from parish churches has been surprisingly successful in enabling congregations to join in the liturgy and participate spiritually if not in the flesh. The Church is more than a building. Take the building away, and the Church still exists.