A vicar was left red-faced after accidentally setting his arm on fire while recording a virtual sermon.
Reverend Stephen Beach was performing the service online as people across the UK stay at home to help stop the spread of coronavirus.
In the video, the vicar of St Budeaux Parish Church in Plymouth had his jumper set on fire as he leaned over a some candles, prompting him to calmly exclaim: “Oh dear, I just caught fire.”
The 61-year-old luckily wasn’t harmed in the incident.
He said: “I just felt my arm getting a bit hot. The nice thing is, it did damage my pullover and my shirt but my arm is fine – there’s no burn on my arm.”
Both the Church of England and Church of Scotland have now banned mass worship and will be leading services on social media platforms such as Facebook because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Catholic churches are also encouraging people to maintain social distance and stay at home to slow the spread of the virus.
Mr Beach was filming the last part of his online sermon when the incident took place but admitted that he had never recorded himself before.
He added: “The whole thing is a bit surreal – there’s never been a time where we’ve deliberately not gone to Sunday worship, so that’s very strange.
“I’ve never phoned so many people really, because normally you go and visit people.”
Since the accident, Mr Beach said he had other vicars joke about “being on fire for Jesus”.
“People have laughed and laughed, really,” he said.
