Thousands gather for Easter Sunday celebrations in Jerusalem

AP Worldstream
Mar 27, 2005

Thousands of Christians from around the world gathered at Jerusalem
holy sites to celebrate Easter Sunday, marking the day with prayer
and hymns.

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, the top Roman Catholic
official in the Holy Land, celebrated Mass at the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher, built over the skull-shaped rocky mount believed to be
the place where Jesus was crucified.

More than 20 Armenian priests cloaked in black gowns and head dress
followed Sabbah into of the candle-lit church singing the Lord’s
Prayer. The Catholic priest emerged from the Sepulcher with a flame
and lit worshippers’ candles that gradually illuminated the painted
dome ceiling erected in the Crusader era.

The Easter services underlined one of Christianity’s doctrinal
differences: Roman Catholics believe Jesus Christ was buried in the
Holy Sepulcher, while many Protestant denominations believe he was
buried in the nearby Garden Tomb. Karen Abel, 39, a secretary from
Eclectic, Ala., was among the Protestants gathered at sunrise to mark
the day at the site of the Garden Tomb.

The recent calm in Israeli-Palestinian fighting has attracted many
more foreign pilgrims to Jerusalem this year for the Holy Week
than in recent years. But the numbers were still a far cry from the
several thousand who used to come before the outbreak of violence in
September 2000.

Abel said she had not been hesitant to make her first trip to the
Holy Land.

“Christ died here for our sins,” she said. “I feel mighty protected
by that.”

Bix Baker, 53, and his wife Becky, 51, came from Minnesota to spend
the Easter holiday with their daughter, who does consulting work for
city officials in Ramallah.

Sitting inside Christianity’s holiest church with his wife and
daughter, the high school science teacher said his students told him
he was crazy to travel to Israel.

“We weren’t afraid to come,” Baker said. “Things seem to be different
now, but we would have come anyway because this is where our daughter
lives.”

Catholics arriving in missionary groups from Spain and France said
they had included the ailing Pope in their prayers Sunday.

As part of ongoing efforts to ease travel restraints on the Palestinian
population, the army announced Sunday that up to 8,200 Palestinians
from the West Bank and 250 from Gaza would be granted daily permits
into either Jerusalem or Nazareth _ on a day-to-day basis _ during
the Easter celebration.

However, with this year’s celebrations coinciding with the Jewish
Festival of Purim, the Israeli military imposed general travel
restrictions on Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza from Wednesday
through Sunday, steering many Christians away from requesting
permission to travel to Jerusalem.

In Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity, hundreds of worshippers prayed
and lit candles. A few Palestinians inside the church called for
the resignation of Patriarch Irineos I, the highest Greek Orthodox
cleric in the Holy Land, to protest alleged property deals the Greek
Orthodox church has made with Jewish groups trying to expand their
hold on Palestinian neighborhoods in the disputed city.