More than 1,200 pastors have vowed to hold in-person services on May 31, Pentecost Sunday, defying a state moratorium on religious gatherings that Gov.

Tyler, an attorney representing a Lodi church that has challenged the governor’s order in court, said more than 1,200 pastors have signed a “Declaration of Essentiality,” asserting their churches are as essential as any grocery or hardware store and should be allowed to reopen.

The pastors who signed onto the letter intend to open their churches to parishioners on May 31, with or without the governor’s permission, the letter says.

Dreiband, an assistant attorney general and the head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, questioned Newsom’s decision to keep houses of worship closed until the third phase of the state’s reopening plan while allowing restaurants, offices, shopping malls and schools to open in the second.

Several churches have mounted legal challenges to Newsom’s moratorium on in-person services.

Federal judges in Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento have batted down all of them, although the Cross Culture Christian Center, a church in Lodi, is appealing its ruling to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal.