Thousands celebrate Easter in Holy Land

Jerusalem — Thousands of pilgrims from around the world celebrated Easter in the Holy Land, commemorating the day when according to Christian tradition Jesus was resurrected in Jerusalem two millennia ago.
Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal led Mass at the Holy Sepulcher church in Jerusalem yesterday. The site is where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected.

In the West Bank town of Bethlehem, worshippers prayed and lit candles at the Church of the Nativity, traditionally believed to be the birthplace of Jesus.
Easter was also celebrated in Gaza where less than three thousand Christians live among about 1.7 million Muslims.

Christian communities in the Holy Land, as well as elsewhere in the Middle East, have been declining in recent years due to regional turmoil.
Meanwhile, at the Vatican, Pope Francis stood under sunny skies before a flock so numerous they overflowed the flower-bedecked St Peter’s Square.

Even before Mass began in late morning, more than 100,000 tourists, Romans and pilgrims, young and old, had turned out for the Mass. Many more streamed in throughout the ceremony.

The broad boulevard leading from the square to the Tiber river filled up with the faithful and the curious, trying to catch a glimpse of the pontiff at the altar under a canopy erected on the steps of St Peter’s Basilica.

A rainstorm had lashed Rome on Saturday night, with thunder competing with the sound of hymns when Francis led a vigil service in St Peter’s Basilica. Dawn brought clear skies and warm temperatures for Easter, the culmination of Holy Week, the day which marks the Christian belief that Jesus rose from the dead after his crucifixion.

This year the Roman Catholic church’s celebration of Easter coincided with that of the Orthodox church and some of the hymns at the Vatican Mass were in Russian.
Pope Francis didn’t give a homily, since traditionally pontiffs’ main remarks on Easter come during the noon-time Urbi et Orbi (Latin for “to the city and the world”) address.

Reflecting the worldwide reach of the Catholic church, faithful read aloud prayers and passages from the Bible in Hindu, French, Chinese, German, Korean, Spanish, Italian and English.

Meanwhile, a United Nations envoy has accused Israel of trying to block him and other diplomats from a pre-Easter “Holy Fire” ritual in the packed Jerusalem church Christians revere as the burial site of Jesus.

The incident on Saturday, following two days of violence at a separate flashpoint holy site for Jews and Muslims, highlighted rising tensions in the city ahead of Pope Francis’s Holy Land visit next month.

Israel dismissed the UN official’s complaint, calling it an attempt to inflate a “micro-incident” and noting there was no reported violence among the tens of thousands of Christians who thronged to the Holy Sepulchre Church in Jerusalem’s old walled city.

Robert Serry, the UN’s peace envoy to the Middle East, said in a statement that Israeli security officers had stopped a group of Palestinian worshippers and diplomats in a procession near the church, “claiming they had orders to that effect”.

Serry added in separate remarks he had waited with Italian, Norwegian and Dutch diplomats for up to half an hour crushed by a crowd against a barricade, while Israeli officers ignored his appeals to speak with a superior.

“It became really dangerous because there was a big crowd and I was pushed against a metal fence the police put up there, the crowd tried to push really hard,” Serry said, adding they might have been trampled had police not finally let them pass.

“I don’t understand why this happened,” he added. “I’m not saying I felt my life was in imminent danger, but this wasn’t something you associate with a peaceful procession for Easter.”

Charging “unacceptable behaviour from the Israeli security authorities,” Serry demanded in his statement that all parties “respect the right of religious freedom”.
An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman denied Serry’s charges and accused him of displaying “a serious problem of judgment” as there was no reported violence during the prayers and a customary torch-lit “Holy Fire” ritual held at the church.

Spokesman Yigal Palmor acknowledged though that police took steps to limit the crowd packed into the church and narrow streets outside it. “If there was any pushing and shoving I would say it was a micro-incident,” Palmor said.

Israeli police did not immediately comment on the incident, which came as they grappled with tensions elsewhere in the old city where Jews celebrated a week-long Passover festival at the same time as Christians prepared for Easter.

Terry Balata, a Palestinian witness, told Reuters that she heard the Israeli officer tell Serry, who was with about 30 other diplomats and worshippers, “so what?” when he identified himself as UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s envoy to the region.

Earlier this week, police confronted Muslim protesters throwing stones near the al-Aqsa Mosque as Jews visited the surrounding area, which Judaism reveres as the place where biblical temples once stood.

Pope Francis plans to visit Jerusalem and holy sites in the occupied West Bank such as Bethlehem when he makes his first Holy Land sojourn as pontiff late in May.
“Holy Fire” is a traditional Orthodox Christian ceremony at which they say a miraculous fire appears at the site identified as Jesus’s tomb every year on the day before Easter. — AP