| JERUSALEM — More pilgrims and local Christians celebrated Easter this year in the Holy Land, a marked contrast to the previous three years when many stayed away because of Israeli-Palestinian violence, said church leaders.
This was evident from Easter Friday, when Christians, wearing crowns of thorns and carrying crucifixes in same manner as Jesus did, took part in religious processions.
One of those taking part, Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the Vatican’s top diplomat in the Holy Land, told Ecumenical News International that this year there was a noticeable increase in the number of pilgrims.
“It’s true,” said Sambi. “This Easter there are a lot of pilgrims. This is great for the pilgrims. And it is a moral support to the small flock of Christians here in the Holy Land.”
As has been done for centuries, Christians took part in a march down the Via Dolorosa, a series of interconnecting narrow cobblestone alleyways and streets in Jerusalem’s Old City. This is the route that tradition holds Jesus took after being condemned and being forced to carry his cross to the point of his execution.
The Roman Catholic procession ends at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, on the spot where Christian tradition says Jesus was crucified, buried and rose from the dead.
Archbishop Sambi said he hopes that the message of Easter will help end the conflict in the region.
“Celebration of Easter, it means liberation. To walk in the path of God, to re-establish fraternity,” said Sambi. “The news departing every day from this land to the world is the opposite — destruction, hatred and killing. All the world has to work to give back to the Holy Land its true mission of life, of love and of brotherhood.”
This increase in Christian tourism to the Holy Land was also reflected on Easter Sunday, when a long line of pilgrims formed before dawn outside the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem.
This is the only other rival site revered by Christians as the place where Jesus was laid to rest before conquering death and miraculously reappearing to his followers two-thousand years ago.
When the large crowd filled the open-air sanctuary containing a tomb carved into a stone wall, the non-denominational shrine’s general secretary Peter Wells gave this greeting.
“Thank you for coming to celebrate with us the best news ever announced in Jerusalem, that the tomb is empty and Jesus is gloriously alive. The Lord is risen!” he proclaimed.
The sermon was delivered by the chairman of the Garden Tomb Association, Victor Jack, who told the worshippers that Easter Sunday is to be marked as a day of rejoicing. “We have come not to commemorate a martyr’s death but to celebrate our Lord’s victory over Satan and the grave,” said Jack. |
