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By John Russell
JERUSALEM : Thousands of
worshippers from five Christian faiths on Sunday celebrated Easter
at the traditional site of Jesus’ death, burial and
resurrection—Jerusalem’s contested Holy Sepulcher Church.
Pilgrims thronged to the Baroque
chapel in the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City to hear the five
denominations’ Easter masses, held in tight succession according
to a controversial, 150-year-old schedule which divides the sacred
sanctuary among the rival faiths.
While some came from nearby
Egypt, others arrived from distant countries such as India, Nigeria,
and South Korea. Israel, which imposed travel bans during the Jewish
Passover holiday, allowed over 8,000 Palestinians into Jerusalem
from the West Bank and more than 500 from the Gaza Strip.
The pious wept for joy and cried
in anguish as they washed the stone slab where they believe
Jesus’s corpse was prepared for burial and lit candles next to the
tomb in which they believe he was buried.
Due to a rare convergence of the
Gregorian and Julian calendars, Armenian, Greek Orthodox, Catholics,
Copts, and Assyrians all celebrated Easter on the same day this
year, only the fourth time the two Easters have coincided in 20
years.
In the past, impassioned
clergymen have come to blows and many have been hospitalized over
alleged encroachments onto another’s territory or time allotment.
“It’s very complicated when
everybody has to come together and pray at the same time,” says
Franciscan monk Father Athanasius.
 --AFP
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