For more than a quarter century, Dr. James L. Sailes knew that every Sunday morning around 10:30, he would be proudly walking the aisles of Antioch Baptist Church in Varina, greeting scores of his 500 or so members with handshakes and hugs.

Until mid-March, that one-to-one, face-to-face rapport was a familiar sight for many Richmond area congregations for decades. The reality of the deadly COVID-19 pandemic ground this centuries-old tradition to an abrupt halt.

Today, the pastor said one can count on Antioch Baptist being almost an empty shell for a while until the airborne virus — passed person-to-person by unknowingly breathing the disease — subsides and stops infecting people and taking lives.

Antioch is among hundreds of Richmond area congregations that have collectively responded to public officials’ calls to help mitigate the spread of the coronavirus by not gathering in crowds.

Although Gov. Ralph S. Northam’s latest executive orders allow churches statewide to reopen at 50 percent capacity, many people continue to stay home. Some churches, cognizant of the age and health conditions of their congregants, remain closed while livestreaming Sunday service via the internet.

“I’m not sure we have any Saint Paul’s, Luke’s, James or Saint Peter’s walking the Earth today,” said Dr. Sailes, referring to the icons of biblical history who may have challenged the strength of COVID-19. “To cast caution to the wind would be testing God,” he said, noting recent media reports of crowds rushing to beaches, waterfront cafes and sidewalk eateries across the country, ignoring health warnings that the return to “normal” may be moving too fast for the disease to subside.

“That may be stretching it,” he said, echoing others citing scientific evidence that COVID-19 strikes at will with little notice.

Dr. Sailes, a Chattanooga, Tenn., native who has led the Henrico County church for 39 years, said Antioch quickly shut down its building when the governor and state health officials in March appealed for help in curbing the virus’ spread. Sunday worship shifted to virtual programs on social media.

Since the state’s limited reopening allowance on May 15, attendance at Sunday services has not exceeded 15 people, he said. The congregation is honoring health guidance also by making sure people are spaced apart.

In the process, Dr. Sailes also has made some adjustments, including cutting the Sunday service to about 45 minutes from the usual hour and a half, and singing fewer verses of songs.

“I sing too many songs,” he said with a chuckle.

One sign congregants are taking virus mitigation seriously is no reported deaths among the church’s members, although the relative of one has died of COVID-19, he said.

Dr. Sailes said he doesn’t expect attendance to bounce back for a while, even if health officials continue to roll back the public health alerts and appeals.

“We’ll stretch as long as we need to,” Dr. Sailes said. “The goal is to sustain this church in the midst of the virus.”

Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church has recorded the deaths of six members who had COVID-19, said Dr. Alonza L. Lawrence, the church’s pastor.

“I’m surprised by the number of deaths in our church,” said Dr. Lawrence. “We got hit hard,” he said. “Hit very hard.”

He said the coronavirus has required creativity by the church “that we were not aware of — the creation of methods for sustaining the church other than meeting and gathering.”

Congregations are learning slowly that regular worship services will change, church assembly will require distance worship and the music ministry will be different, as will seating, Dr. Lawrence said.

“As a community of people,” he said, churches will be the standard for health care, having hand sanitizer and personal protection equipment for the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions in the congregation. Churches will need to be sanitized before and after services, and the familiar tradition of church banquets and dinners during and after services will shrink, if not disappear, he said.

“Most pastors I’ve talked to are thinking along the same lines,” he said.

Moore Street moved its Sunday services to Zoom videoconferencing and continues to conduct many of its regular activities during the week, including its knitting and crocheting group, on Zoom.

“It yields itself to a need for social interacting,” said Dr. Law- rence, who has led the Carver area church for 25 years.

He said it probably will be July or August before the church resumes its traditional gatherings. He echoed others in asserting the virus has no timeline and in stressing his concern about signs of people taking the virus risk too lightly.

He noted that 60 to 70 percent of his congregation would be considered “senior citizens,” one of the high-risk targets of the virus.

Still, he said, “I think people will want to come to church even with the added requirements” that went into effect on a two-week delay in Richmond on May 29 under the state’s reopening plan. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Getting members connected with a virtual church service via the internet, Zoom connection, Facebook or YouTube has turned a new page in pastors’ worship planning books.

“Since we’ve been doing the virtual church,” Dr. Lawrence said, “we won’t be able to stop doing it. We’ve been drop buck- eted into 2020. We (many congregations) wouldn’t have done this had it not been a COVID-19.”

As for those short of patience during this pandemic, Dr. Lawrence said, “I try to share with them that they may be on their way to the biggest party there will ever be — the party in Glory.”

Dr. Kirkland R. Walton, a petroleum geologist who went on to earn several divinity degrees at Virginia Union University before becoming the first full-time pastor of St. Peter Baptist Church in Glen Allen, said the pandemic “teaches us the value of being connected.”

Dr. Walton, who had led the 1,700-member congregation for 35 years with the help of his wife, Brenda, a retired public schoolteacher, said that joining forces to mitigate the spread of the virus has brought people together in the process. The church has shifted gears, not closed its mental nor spiritual doors, he said.

“We still have buildings and the mission of the church has to be done,” the 68-year-old clergyman said. Everything has been scaled back or changed, he said, from reduction of the number of people physically present for Sunday services to “abbreviating” funeral services to gravesides for 12 minutes.

The church’s annual spring revival was postponed, and Vacation Bible School has been rescheduled to later this month.

“It clearly shows us a church is a family, causing persons to have more quality time, people having meals together” and discovering the value of virtual meetings for keeping people connected, he said.

The Henrico County church has not had a full Sunday worship since the third Sunday in March, yet continues to function, Dr. Walton said. “We’re erring on the side of caution right now.”

He said the virus compelled changes to the church as an institution and brought to mind a frequent reminder by his late mother: “You don’t have to entertain to be effective.”