Church leaders in Jerusalem expressed anger at the decision by Israeli police to limit the number of people attending services at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher during the Orthodox Church’s Easter celebrations on Saturday.
C. Rubini CTC, Vatican News
Israeli police will limit the number of worshipers at the Temple of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem during Orthodox Easter ceremonies on Saturday. Church leaders who said they would not cooperate expressed their anger at the move.
Israeli authorities have reduced the number of people who can attend Saturday’s holy fire ceremony at the shrine where Jesus’ tomb is located to 1,800 from last year’s 8,200. Holy fire ceremonies are usually attended by large crowds.
Additional security checkpoints have been set up in the old city in recent days. Israeli police insist they are trying to ensure security and freedom of worship, but church representatives have urged Christians to ignore the restrictions.
Fr. Matthew Tsiopsis told the media. Christian leaders point to the fact that the ceremonies have been going on for a long time without creating any difficulty.
Joint statement
In a joint statement issued by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, the Custodians of the Holy Land, and the Armenian Patriarchate, they said they “will continue to uphold the status quo of the existing rites, perform the rites that have been practiced for two millennia as rites, and invite all who wish to worship to join them.”
This year, sentiment around religious festivals in the Old City runs high as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the Jewish Passover and Easter come together at a time of heightened Israeli-Palestinian tensions. An Italian tourist was killed and seven others injured in a car attack in Tel Aviv last week. The car attack comes after two British-Israeli sisters were killed and their mother injured in a shootout in the West Bank. Prior to that, Israeli forces had attacked locations inside Lebanon and the Gaza Strip linked to the Palestinian militant group Hamas.