A German church opened its doors to Muslim worshippers. It shows how religions are having to get creative to meet spiritual and financial demands.

• Limits on in-person gatherings have put a strain on religious institutions during the coronavirus pandemic.
• But congregations are getting creative to meet the demands, between livestreamed services and drive-thru confessions.
• In Germany, one church lent its building to Muslim worshippers whose mosque was too small to accommodate them under social distancing guidelines.

The coronavirus pandemic has changed the face of religion around the world.

With restricted access to places of worship, choirs silenced, and mass gatherings a thing of the past, the past few months have been particularly hard on those for whom communal worship is an essential part of their lives.

"This has been a huge loss," James Walters, Director of Religion and Global Society at the London School of Economics, told Business Insider Today.

"It's been very isolating, very detrimental to the fabric of religious life that goes beyond worship."

But from this time of great need, some surprising innovations.

One church in Germany hosted Friday prayers for a local mosque that had run out of space because of social distancing restrictions.

Monnika Matthias, the pastor of the Martha Lutheran church in Berlin, made the offer to the nearby Dar Assalam mosque, which could only allow 50 at a time through its doors, compared to its usual capacity of several hundred.

"On the one hand we had this sensation of distance. On the other hand we also had a completely new sense of closeness," she told Business Insider Today.

The invitation offered a lifeline, but required a few accommodations for the new guests. Idols are forbidden in Islam, so images of the Last Supper and the Virgin Mary — as well as crucifixes — had to be covered.

But for the Muslims attending the prayers, the similarities outweighed the differences.

"First, when you go into the church, it was a strange feeling because of the music instruments, the photos," one worshipper said. "But then you forget the small details. This is a House of God."

"There are no differences between a church and a mosque. It gives you the same feeling," another worshipper said outside the church.

Faith may have remained unshaken during the coronavirus pandemic. But mosques, churches, and temples have still been hit hard.

It was religious gatherings that were at the root of many large-scale outbreaks of the coronavirus.

Thousands of cases of COVID-19 were linked to a single church in South Korea in February and March of this year.

The pandemic has also had a financial impact on religious institutions.

In Germany, a group of 400 mosques said in April they could face bankruptcy because the lack of worshippers meant a lack of donations.

"The mosque lives and thrives only through the people and the donations they make," Abdul Kadir Aktürk, the spokesman for the Mevlana Mosque in Berlin told Business Insider Today.

"Of course, we are missing donations. But somehow we managed to keep our heads above the water."

People of faith around the world have found different ways to cope.

The move online has been steady. An app in Nigeria allows Catholics not only to attend virtual Mass, but book times for confession with priests and make donations. Meanwhile, Catholics in Poland have been offered drive-thru confessions.

Some churches who had seen dwindling congregations before COVID have actually seen more people attend online than would normally go in person.

Yet for many, virtual worship is simply no substitute for the real thing.

"Initially at the start of lockdown, a lot of enthusiasm for the potential for online gathering and its ability to reach out in new ways but what we've been seeing more recently is a recognition of the limitations of all of that and a real desire for people to gather again in person," Walters said.

Some of the most important dates in the religious calendar have been hard hit, with mass worship a big challenge because of COVID-19 restrictions. Ramadan and Eid celebrations were muted and restricted in size this year.

The hajj to Mecca managed to go ahead with around 1,000 local Saudi pilgrims, instead of the more than 2 million who usually arrive in Islam's holiest city from around the world.

The pope had resumed his public audiences, but has canceled them again as Italy experiences a second wave of coronavirus infections.

Back in Berlin, Muslims have been able to use their mosques again after restrictions were scaled back.

But worshippers in mosques and churches still need to keep a 1.5-meter distance from one another and have to wear face coverings until they reach their position.

With second and third waves beginning the world over, faiths that have survived millennia are having to make some of the biggest changes in their history, just to get through 2020.

"Our religion, in such times as corona, tells how to behave. It is written in the Quran, if something occurs then you should stay home and not meet in the communities," Aktürk said. "That is why we have already been prepared, even without knowing it."

That's when you think — this is such a beautiful, beautiful faith."