In a heartening display of inter-faith compassion, a German church has opened its doors to Muslims with no place to attend Friday prayers during Ramadan.
Although the nation suspended religious services back in March as a means of curbing the COVID-19 outbreaks, they recently started allowing worshippers to gather in groups of up to 50 people at a time.
The Dar Assalam mosque in the Neukölln district of Berlin typically hosts up to 1,000 worshippers at a time during the month of fasting, but due to the new social restrictions, hundreds of German Muslims have been struggling to find a place of prayer.
Thankfully, the nearby Martha evangelical church—located just one mile away from the mosque—offered to open its doors to host the Friday prayers.
The church has now reportedly been offering two different prayer services for the Islamic worshippers, one in German and one in Arabic. Worshippers have also been required to wear masks and maintain six feet of distance during the prayers.
Representatives of Dar Assalam say that the events have helped them to double the amount of people attending their services while simultaneously raising valuable funds to support the mosque during the lockdowns.
“It is a great sign of solidarity,” mosque spokesperson Juanita Villamor told Newsweek. “We are just thankful, this is a good chance of inter-religious dialog and it is wonderful that the church is doing this.”
