A two-week “firebreak” to slow the spread of COVID-19 in Wales has “disappointed” the Archbishop of Cardiff, since it will close churches to public worship.

“Since their re-opening at the end of the first lockdown, our churches have been places of safety and security as well as tranquility and peace, so much needed in these turmoil-ridden days,” said Archbishop George Stack of Cardiff in an Oct. 20 statement.

“Ours is an incarnational religion. The ‘Eucharistic Famine’ of the recent months of lockdown has been painful to us in so many ways – known and unknown. Churches are not just places in which we worship God but with which we worship God,” the archbishop said.

Stack said the Catholic Church is continuing to dialogue with the Welsh government “in the hope” that churches will be allowed to remain open for private prayer at specified times during the “firebreak.”

Wales joins the Republic of Ireland as the only nations in Europe to have reimposed bans on public worship due to the spike of COVID-19 cases.