PATRIARCHS AND HEADS OF CHURCHES IN JERUSALEM CALL FOR ENDING SUFFERING

WAFA – Palestine News Agency, Palestine
April 12 2006

Emerged because of Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

JERUSALEM, April 12, 2006 (WAFA) -Patriarchs and Heads of Churches
in Jerusalem called on the international community to put an end for
the suffering emerged because of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

In a message issued Wednesday on the occasion of the Easter Falls
2006, the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem said “it is
not permitted to boycott a people on whom oppressions and injustices
were and are imposed, while the international community remained so
far paralysed in putting an end to these oppressions, and therefore
this paralysis gave birth to violence, terrorism and the humiliation
of the human person.

They revealed that instead of boycotting, “we appeal to the
international community to seize the opportunity of this phase in
history of the conflict in order to try seriously to put an end to
the suffering of our land and of all its inhabitants”.

They called upon international community to transform “our land in
a land in which shines the glory of the human being liberated from
all kind of oppression and fear, where the glory and the voice of
God appeared to man”.

“We appeal to our leaders, knowing they are facing difficult decisions.

If a sincere will exists, there will be capacity and power to overcome
all obstacles, in order to reach security, peace and justice to all,
Palestinians and Israelis alike,” the added.

The Patriarchs and Heads of Churches also called upon the Israeli
Authorities so to see that unilateral measures are another aspect of
the conflict and the permanence of the sufferings for both peoples.

“Therefore, we urge them to take the right measures to liberate the
human being, Israeli or Palestinian, and to see in the Palestinian
Authority a help and a partner to construct a peace, for which the
building is not something impossible”.

The message was signed by: Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem,
Patriarch Michel Sabbah, R.C. Latin, Patriarch Torkom I Manooghian,
Armenian Orthodox, Fr. Pierbattista Pizziballa, ofm, Custos of the
Holy Land, Archbishop Anba Abraham, Coptic Orthodox, Archbishop
Swerios Malki Murad, Syrian-Orthodox, Archbishop Abouna Grima,
Ethiopian Orthodox, Archbishop Paul Sayyah, Maronite, Bishop Riah Abu
el-Assal, Anglican, Bishop Mounib Younan, Lutheran, Bishop Pierre
Malki, Syrian-Catholic, Rev. Raphael Minassian, Armenian Catholic
and Archimandrite Mtanios Haddad, Greek Catholic.