Churches ... totally confused

[Chicchicchicchiclana]

I was walking past my local Catholic church at chucking out time tonight and saw easily 50+ probably more members of the congregation leaving and setting off for home.

DofE's special service at Canterbury Cathedral this morning was 120 people.

So how come funerals are still only 30 mourners allowed to attend? Surely Boris and up to 90 others should be allowed to go to DofE's funeral if they promise not to go back to the Castle for the egg sandwiches after?

i don't know, but i presume for regular services the minister/ church cttee has to do a risk assessment, and be able to defend the numbers allowed in.
it will vary according to the type and size of building.
maybe because funerals can be quite emotional events, people more likely to huddle together, kiss and hug even, it was thought safer to have a set limited number.

Funerals in Wales aren't limited to 30 as far as I know, the limit is determined by the size of the venue and how many it can hold while allowing for social distancing.

That's interesting about funeral numbers in Wales. I shouldn't think there would be a problem with having a really large church or cathedral for DofE.

I suppose my question is have churches always been exempt from the no gatherings rule for their standard weekly services?

Churches were not exempt the first time, but have been allowed to remain open this lockdown, yes. With very strict rules, massive social distancing etc. Not all have chosen to open though.

I was pondering earlier why a church would be potentially allowed more people at a regular service than at a funeral (depending on building size etc), but I guess the government wanted the same limit applied everywhere, including eg crematoria. Otherwise I would imagine there’d be accusations of favouring religion.

I thought it was on capacity in Wales too but I am at a funeral on Monday which is 30 limit. I don't live in Wales and am too befuddled but getting through the days to question it. Covid rules are too complex to deal with unless you have a totally straight head.

I think the reasoning is probably about expected numbers. Many churches have small congregations in big spaces but a funeral could easily be far more. Rather than trying to give a "safe" number for each building there is a blanket 30 to be sensibly conservative.

At my current church the number of attendees is about how many can fit in and be distanced so no booking required but we have to sign in, wear masks etc. At my old church in a much busier parish they are asking people to book because the normal number of people who would attend can't currently fit in.

I would also expect the Royal family are all too aware that a lot of people have been bereaved this year and had very very limited funerals. There’d be a furious backlash if they had hundreds of mourners at DoE’s, just because they have access to very large places of worship that most people don’t. They have to be seen to be abiding by the same rules as everyone else. Anything else and it becomes the next Dominic Cummings saga.

I expect the limit on funerals is also to discourage lots of people from travelling when we were supposed to be staying local? At least the average Sunday congregation will be local.

The government did allow churches to keep meeting under covid measures but a great many of them decided not to and only offer online services. Most have now opened over Easter but under very stringent social distancing measures. We have a strict booking system at ours because although the building is big the Sunday congregation is around 200 so we've had to cut that to around 50/60. It's never been up to the churches/diocese etc how many are allowed and how many for funerals and weddings - it's all set by the government. Hopefully soon it'll be relaxed especially for funerals, but it's probably standardised to allow for different sized churches, crematoriums and civic venues.

I imagine it’s down to the size of the church.

Ordinary worship service numbers are dictated by the size of the building. Funerals, weddings and other live cycle events have Gov set numbers.

DH went to church for the first time in ages this morning...you either get a pew to yourself or per household and there's gaps between the pews you can sit down on. So in a big Victorian church you probably could get 50+ people in fine especially if some are in family groups.

I think the issue with weddings and futurals is that everyone is more likely to know each other and want to interact with each other (understandably).

*funerals

We normally have around 400 people at our church but currently have 100 with social distancing. Sunday services are all about the size of the building.

Weddings and funerals have set numbers allocated by the government. A couple got married but long ago and were only allowed 6 people at the wedding because of the wedding rules. I felt so sorry for them ☹️
All the funerals we've had were a max of 30.

No inside knowledge but I can absolutely see it being about fairness. Some churches can space out 100 people, some could only space out 20. And then crematoria are different again. So, how many people could attend a funeral would come down to the luck of you location. Which would lead to lots of complaints if funeral in x town could have 70 people while funeral in y village could only have 20. Setting it at 30 across the board is fairer.