The Easter holiday is the most important date on the calendar for 300 million Orthodox Christians. Church leaders have been urging those celebrating to stay at home and worship to prevent the spread of COVID-19. 

Many watched services online or on television, but some sidestepped virus fears to pray in churches. 

Orthodox Christians are the third largest group of Christian believers in the world, and because they follow a different calendar to Catholics and Protestants, they celebrated Easter a week later this year. 

The Bulgarian government urged people to pray from home or watch services live on TV and online. The restrictions mean that people are celebrating in different ways from previous years. 

Bulgaria, which declared a state of emergency until May 13, has imposed a ban on groups of more than two adults congregating together as well as shutting schools, restaurants and other public venues. Non-essential travel is also banned. 

"In the current situation, we must be better and more humble," Prime Minister Boyko Borissov wrote on Facebook. "Let's do everything we can to be proud of our decisions and actions in years to come."

Some Orthodox Christians in the Balkan state attended outdoor services as churches remained open despite the COVID-19 pandemic, which has triggered intense debate on social media.

Some Bulgarians have criticized the church for not only keeping religious houses of worship open during this time but also for permitting the practices of people kissing icons in churches and using shared spoons during communion. 

Nearly 900 people across the country have been infected and 41 have died as a result of the COVID-19 respiratory disease, which is caused by the novel coronavirus. 

In Romania, churches were closed, but volunteers and priests went to people's homes to hand out loaves of consecrated break and light candles with the holy flame brought from Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 

In Georgia, a midnight mass at Tbilisi's Holy Trinity Cathedral was participated in by several hundred following a government decision to allow the churches to open despite a curfew aimed at curbing the virus. 

Russians attended a service in Moscow's Christ the Saviour Church without worshippers. President Vladimir Putin visited a chapel at his country residence instead of attending a service as usual. 

"This year the festival is taking place with restrictions forced on us. They are necessary to fight the spread of the illness" Putin said in a video address. 

Russia has confirmed more than 42,000 cases of COVID-19 and 361 deaths. Churches held services behind closed doors in Moscow where a large number of the cases are concentrated.

In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky urged people to stay at home, while the country's Orthodox Church encouraged worshippers to attend outdoor services.  

An estimated number of 130,000 attended services across the country. 

In Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, who has previously expressed doubts on the seriousness of the pandemic and has allowed sporting events such as football matches to go ahead, visited a church without a face mask. 

"I don't approve of those who closed people's way to church," he said, as quoted by Belta state news agency, "we experience these viruses every year" he continued. 

There has been widespread concern that religious places of worship could become centres of contagion and pose risks to the most vulnerable groups - such as elderly people. 

Greece, Romania and Serbia have shut down public religious celebrations. Official clergy in all three countries has urged people to either listen to services on the radio or watch them on television. 

Serbia also imposed an 84-hour lockdown lasting from Friday afternoon until early on Tuesday.