As COVID-19 shutters churches, tiny US chapel open for prayer

With the biggest health crisis in the world forcing many places of worship to shut their doors, Shauna Riggs sought spiritual comfort on Sunday inside "The Smallest Church in America."

The tiny chapel - 9 by 18 feet (2.7 by 5.4 meters) and featuring just 12 seats - is a tourist attraction along the state of Georgia's coastal scenic byway.

But during the health and economic disasters brought on by the deadly coronavirus, it has become a shelter from the storm.

"Literally the week I moved here, the coronavirus hit. I needed a safe space and this is it," Riggs told AFP after writing prayers on paper on the pulpit. "Since there's not a church available right now for me to actually go to, I come here," the 38-year-old higher education worker said.

"I don't leave until I feel relaxed and calm. The reason I came was just to talk to God and tell him how thankful I am during these hard times, and keep my faith up."

Like most businesses and organizations in the United States, churches have been forced into lockdown mode. Pastors are conducting services and Bible studies online, cutting out the essential personal interaction of religious services.

The small church is pastorless, and people often step inside to snap pictures of the interior: white cinderblock walls, wooden roof beams, and a panel of stained glass featuring an image of Jesus Christ.

The Ten Commandments are framed on one wall. A bulletin board featuring prayers is mounted on another, and a donation box is outside the unlocked front door.

Tourists take pictures inside the 'Smallest Church In America' in Townsend, Georgia.

Southern live oaks, the same trees that give the closest city, Savannah, its haunted feel, stand guard outside the chapel, which opened in 1949.