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Christians dwindling at Holy Land Easter services
2003-087-2
4/24/2003
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[Episcopal News Service]
A diminished flock of local Christians and only a handful of pilgrims from abroad attended this year's Holy Land Easter services at which Jesus' resurrection from the dead was celebrated. Church leaders said many local Christians are fleeing the region and few of their foreign counterparts have been travelling to Jerusalem since the start of the Israeli-Palestinian clashes in September 2000.
As a result, there were no crowds at this year's Easter services at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the site in Jerusalem most closely associated with Jesus' death and resurrection. The Holy Sepulchre is located in Jerusalem's walled Old City, and is the place where Jesus was said to have been laid to rest and, according to Christian belief, rose from the dead.
Before the troubles began, Easter brought so many tourists to Jerusalem that many had to be turned away from the crowded site. This year, the few visitors who made the journey to Jerusalem found they could walk right into the ornate interior of the church.
This has triggered a debate among some community leaders about the future of the sites themselves, in an area where there are fewer and fewer Christians and the major faiths are Judaism and Islam.
The Rev. Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, a scholar and Roman Catholic priest at the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem, agreed that while the sacred areas might still survive with a further reduced Christian presence, the support of a strong local Christian community was still important. 'If the local Christians leave, then of course, the holy places would be of interest to scholars, to pilgrims. But they would, in fact, be museums, and people like me, foreigners, would be the curators,' Murphy-O'Connor told ENI. 'They no longer--none of these churches--have vital communities.'
Many Christian Palestinians in the West Bank were barred from reaching Jerusalem this year due to Israeli military restrictions. The West Bank, the area west of the River Jordan inhabited mainly by Palestinians, was closed off from Jerusalem due to Israeli concerns about possible terror attacks during the week-long Jewish Passover, which was celebrated at the same time as Easter.
The smaller Christian presence was particularly evident on Good Friday, when only several hundred people lined the cobblestone alleys of Jerusalem's Old City to participate in this year's ceremony retracing Jesus' steps towards crucifixion.
Fourteen stations mark the events of the last walk of Jesus from a courtyard where he was said to have been condemned to death. Small groups of Italian, German, Swedish, Filipino, South American and English pilgrims made their way along the Via Dolorosa to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
'This is nothing like it used to be when thousands used to come from all over the world,' said Father Simon, a Franciscan monk. 'But I am always happy to see people recognize the sacrifice of Christ and his pain.'
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