Regular parish priests of the Russian Orthodox Church will not administer communion at home to parishioners with a confirmed coronavirus diagnosis.
Church speaker, Archpriest of the Russian Orthodox Church Mikhail Dudko spoke about this in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta, answering the question whether it is true that priests will come to patients with coronavirus in special suits.
According to him, the church has detailed rules in this regard: a priest who goes to give communion or unction to a sick person must find out what condition he is in and whether there is a suspicion of coronavirus.
“If it exists, and especially if there is confirmation that a person is suffering from a mild form of the disease, but it is a diagnosed coronavirus, the priest does not come. But he calls the service that was created in the Moscow Patriarchate, and special priests, who in normal times carry out hospital ministry, come to the patient. They have experience, and they have been given complete and detailed instructions on exactly how to contact infected people. Communion will be given to such a person,” the archpriest.
“We, ordinary parish priests, give communion at home only to parishioners who are not sick with coronavirus,” Dudko clarified. “This also has a certain risk - you have to walk down the street, go into the entrance - but this is different than going to an infected person.”