Christians in Holy Land celebrate Easter despite hardships

By Judith Sudilovsky
OSV News

BETHLEHEM, West Bank — The pews of the St. Catherine Church in Bethlehem were full and it was standing room only, as parishioners dressed in colorful Easter finery filled in for the Easter Sunday Mass.

For some, it was a matter of choice and tradition to attend Mass at their local parish with all their extended family members. But many others said that while being only six miles from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, they had been unable to procure the travel permits from the Israeli authorities which would have allowed them to attend the Easter Mass at the holy site where tradition holds that Jesus was crucified and resurrected.

“We did not get permission,” said Roger Salameh, who works for a nongovernmental organization and commented that, at 37 years old, he has never been to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Instead, he was attending Easter Sunday Mass with his wife Claudette Mubarak, 29, and their two young children at St. Catherine. “Of course, we would like to celebrate the Easter Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where you feel a deeper connection to God and the significance of the (Resurrection).”

Earlier in the week, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said some 6,000 travel permits had been issued for Easter week for the West Bank Christian community which numbers 50,000.

Roger and Louis Jaar — cousins in their 30s from one of the oldest Christian families of Bethlehem — also attended Easter Sunday in their hometown. Neither had received travel permission, but they told OSV News that though the situation has become more difficult for Christians to get permits, at least the family was all together during the holiday in their parish church.

On Holy Saturday some people were denied entry into Jerusalem through the Bethlehem checkpoint despite having a permit, noted Louis, a gynecologist, who was attending the Mass with his wife Sandy, 32, and their two daughters.

Despite the travel restrictions, the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and lack of tourism and pilgrimages affecting the Bethlehem economy, people are already accustomed to living under difficult conditions and have become “desensitized” to the situation, he said.

“Do you see anxiety here? There is no anxiety here,” he said.

Irene Ghattas-Botto, having just taken a family portrait with her extended family, including her husband, two daughters, mother and two sisters and their families, said they had also all been refused travel permits but were thankful for the Christian atmosphere in Bethlehem, and while praying for peace, reflected on the blessing they had in comparison to the Christians in Gaza.

“We love Bethlehem. Bethlehem is a Christian city. We always pray for peace,” she said.

Coming to Bethlehem from the northern Arab-Israeli city of Nazareth, Fahed, 45, and Maisa, 42, Hawa said they had opted to spend Easter Sunday in Bethlehem rather than at the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem after trying to attend the Orthodox Holy Fire ceremony the day before.

They did not have the proper permission bracelets to attend, but said the scene became “very aggressive” and they left quickly as they had come with their five children.

“This is Easter, we feel at peace with all despite the complicated situation we are living in,” said Maisa, noting that as she was Catholic and Fahed was Greek Orthodox, they were happy to be celebrating Easter on the same day in 2025.

Videos circulating of the Holy Fire ceremony showed scenes of heavy Israeli security in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, with violent confrontations and police aggressively pushing Christians, preventing them from reaching the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

An Orthodox pilgrim who attended the ceremony inside the church also described to OSV News on April 19 incidents where Russian Orthodox pilgrims clashed with police and moments of conflict between Armenian and Greek Orthodox clergy.

In a Facebook post, Latin Patriarchate CEO Sami El-Yousef noted that “a few days ago the streets of the Old City could hold the hundreds of thousands of Jewish faithful who flocked the city for Passover, but today these same streets were too narrow for the less than ten thousand Christians who call Jerusalem home.”

“Most local Christians were not only denied access to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for the Holy Fire celebration, but to the streets of the Christian Quarter and the Old City altogether!” he wrote, alongside a photo showing Apostolic Nuncio Archbishop Adolfo Tito Yllana detained behind police barriers along with a group of other Catholic clergy, local Christians and diplomats.

However, Father Gianfranco Pinto of the Custody of the Holy Land, who was accompanying the delegation, noted that the nuncio and his delegation were actually momentarily delayed as they were leaving the Old City following the early morning Easter Vigil, prior to the start of the Holy Fire ceremony, and were permitted to pass once the police recognized the nuncio after some insistence on the part of the delegation.

Meanwhile, the Israel Police posted on X that they had deployed hundreds of police officers “securing a safe environment for the Holy Fire ceremony.”

In a video circulating on social media, one of the Israeli officers pointed a gun at the face of a Christian scout. A church source who does not want to be named confirmed to OSV News that the incident happened and “is indeed shocking” and that the testimonies of witnesses are being gathered to submit them to church leaders and to local and foreign entities.

Thousands of Orthodox believers filled the church for the ancient ceremony of the Holy Fire to have their candles lit by the sacred flame, which they believe to be miraculously produced. The Greek Orthodox and Armenian patriarchs bring forth the fire from the Edicule where, tradition holds, Jesus’ tomb is located.

In a press statement, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate decried what it said was the police’s transformation of “the sacred city into a militarized zone, erecting barriers, obstructing the faithful from reaching their churches, and perpetrating assaults against scouts and worshippers, both locals and pilgrims from around the world.”

This behavior stands “in direct contradiction to Jerusalem’s eternal vocation as a city of peace for all the children of God,” the statement said.

In his Easter Sunday homily, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa emphasized that Christ’s resurrection, symbolized by the empty tomb, was not just a celebration of life conquering death, but a call to courageous, compassionate and hopeful witness — especially amid suffering and conflict.

For the church in Jerusalem, and all Christians today, it is a responsibility to live and proclaim the power of Resurrection through love, forgiveness, justice, and peace, even in the darkest of times, he said.

“Even and despite the many ‘noes’ of this time, a world increasingly caught in a spiral of fear and revenge, of logics of power and exclusion, we want to be God’s ‘yes’ in this world, those who proclaim through their lives and works that they belong to the world willed and created by God … and who know how to testify to the peace of the Upper Room because they have encountered it,” the patriarch said.

Yet, it is not about being “naive and visionary,” he said, but rather about “having faith, firmly believing that God is guiding history.”

“We have no illusions. We know what is happening among us and in the world, and we do not have much hope in the ability of those in power to find solutions, which unfortunately seem to be ever more distant. And we cannot but express our concern about a possible further deterioration of the political situation and the worsening humanitarian catastrophe that is unfolding, especially in Gaza,” Cardinal Pizzaballa said.

“I am thinking in particular of our small community, which for many months has become a sign and symbol of solidarity and hope, a small boat anchored to life, in a sea of pain and suffering.”

In remembering those in Gaza, he urged the faithful to strive to help carry the burden of those in need much like the mothers of Jerusalem, Veronica and Simon of Cyrene did for Jesus.

“Let us remember to offer gestures of dignity and care to those in our midst. This is our way of proclaiming life and resurrection,” he said.