Holy land expects crowds of visitors on holy and easter days

adminonJanuary 26, 2022January 27, 2022Leave a Comment

Holy land expects crowds of visitors on holy and easter days

This year, in the Holy Land, there is no Easter like any other. There are some special features that make it possible to expect an even greater rush of pilgrims and tourists.

The common Easter date of the Western and Eastern Churches, as well as the newly restored chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, mean that Jerusalem is preparing for a particularly large number of visitors on the upcoming Holy and Easter days. In addition, the Jewish Passover is also celebrated during the week.

The traditional Palm Sunday procession kicks off the Holy Week celebration in Jerusalem on Sunday. The procession, which commemorates Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem before his crucifixion, will include 30.000 visitors are expected, a representative of the Israeli police told the Catholic News Agency (KNA) in Jerusalem.

A premiere in the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre

The celebrations of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus are celebrated on the same days this year, despite the different calendar systems of Christians of the Western and Eastern Churches. For the first time this year, the central Easter celebrations will take place in front of and inside the newly restored Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre.

The Palm Procession is one of the highlights of Holy Week in Jerusalem for pilgrims. At the starting point, the church of Betfage, according to ancient tradition, the stone from which Jesus is said to have mounted the donkey during his entry into Jerusalem is venerated. For local Christians, the procession is also a festive representation of their presence in the Holy Land.

Maundy Thursday and Good Friday

Holy Thursday is followed by the liturgy of the washing of the feet in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a procession to the Upper Room on Mount Zion and a nightly prayer vigil at the Garden of Gethsemane. On Good Friday, Christians of all denominations walk the Via Dolorosa with large wooden crosses in remembrance of Jesus’ Passion.

The Way of the Cross ends at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, where a total of six denominations alternate their services according to a precise schedule. Friday evening will also celebrate the tradition of the Descent from the Cross and Entombment, which has been maintained for centuries by the Franciscans: For this purpose, a wooden figure of Jesus is taken down from the cross on Golgotha Hill, anointed on the anointing stone and carried to the tomb.

The Easter Vigil already on Saturday morning

The church, which has been in the so-called status quo from the 19. Regulations established in the nineteenth century prohibit any change in order and are also the reason why the Catholic Easter Vigil celebration in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is celebrated early Saturday morning.

The highlight of Orthodox Easter celebrations in Jerusalem is considered to be the over 1.200-year-old liturgy of the "Holy Fire" at noon on Saturday. According to Orthodox folklore, a flame is miraculously lit at the chapel, which is revered as the tomb of Christ. The fire is then passed to the faithful in the crowded church and in the streets of the Old City.

Security measures

According to police, for security reasons, access to the fire ceremony will be restricted again this year to 10.000 people limited. Police expect an additional 20 to 30.000 visitors in front of and around the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This year, for the first time, large screens will be set up in the courtyard of the Freres Catholic School to broadcast the celebration.

The Israeli Ministry of Tourism expects a 15 percent increase in the number of tourists for the Passover and Easter holidays compared to the previous year. He said the ministry expects about 80.000 Christian pilgrims for Holy Week, a spokeswoman told the KNA. In addition, an even greater number of Jewish visitors are expected for Passover. In the past two years, visitor numbers have dropped significantly due to the ongoing tense security situation in Jerusalem and the region.

It is still unclear whether Christians from the Gaza Strip will be allowed to travel to Jerusalem and the West Bank at Easter. Israeli travel permits not yet available at this time, according to Gaza City pastor.

Joseph Cardinal Frings © N.N. (CBA)

The neologism "fringsen" is derived from former Cardinal Josef Frings – and in the years after the Second World War, it developed into a popular term for stealing at the highest point of need.

Cologne in the second post-war winter: It was cold in the city, which had been badly damaged by hail of bombs. Bitter cold. For the last time in 1946 – 70 years ago – thick ice floes floated on the Rhine. People were freezing in December at up to 15 degrees below zero, and they had almost nothing to eat.

"Klutten klauen"

Odile Zernko was 16 at the time. She lived with her parents in the Cologne suburb of Riehl. The retired teacher remembers the time after 1945: "Our apartment was destroyed by shellfire. My father was in hospital after his return from the Westwall. For some bread we had to queue for hours, and often we got nothing. Despite freezing temperatures outside, we could only heat one room in our apartment. But if we were already starving, we didn’t want to freeze as well." That’s why the slogan was "Klutten klauen", translated as "stealing coals".

The freight trains from the lignite mining area, Zernko remembers, came over the Niehler Damm, where they sometimes stood around without a locomotive. In the evening, in the darkness, it took the young people half an hour with a backpack to reach this place. The clever ones quickly learned the tricks of coal theft: Climbing onto the last two or three wagons so that there was still enough time to jump off when the train started. "Some children froze to death because they didn’t get down fast enough and didn’t survive the icy night in the open wagon all the way to Belgium."

Sometimes, instead of briquettes, there was hard coal, "huge lumps" that had to be crushed first. "They stank because our furnaces were not suitable for hard coal."Once a railroad official and a policeman caught me and scolded me. But they let me go, because I had only discovered one briquette left in the empty wagon". Her father, a customs officer, did not like the idea of stealing.

New Year’s Eve sermon by Cardinal Frings

Then came New Year’s Eve – and Cologne Archbishop Josef Frings to St. Engelbert in Riehl. "Mother and I, we were not the most pious and we were a little late. I can still remember the dark, crowded church. Everybody sat in the benches with thick jackets and caps. The cardinal preached from the pulpit, and everyone would have heard a pin drop." How long the speech lasted, the now 86-year-old no longer knows, "but it was short, because it was nasty cold."But brevity is the spice of life – and the sentence with which Frings made history and struck a chord with the times: "We are living in times when, in times of need, individuals will also be allowed to take what they need to preserve their lives and health, if they cannot obtain it in any other way, through their work or by asking for it."

"Frings gave us the green light," says Zernko, "because who likes to steal??" The mother went home and "kept rubbing these words in the father’s face". Now, in Cologne and the surrounding area, not only the coal trains for the Allied foreign countries were looted, but also trucks belonging to local merchants. The fact that the Rhinelanders did more than their cardinal had meant is probably due to their exuberant nature.

Fringsen became a household word

Frings himself later described his memories without any pathos: "Since I had chosen the motto, ‘Ordered for the people,’ I also saw it as my task to help those who were in need." Because he did not believe "a decent life" was possible under the prevailing circumstances, he dared to make the "somewhat bold move" – with many limitations. "But this then went like wildfire through the whole diocese. Everywhere coals were bravely stolen."And "Fringsen" became a household word not only in Cologne.

But the enthusiasm for the rampant form of procurement was not boundless. The British military administration wanted to hold Frings accountable. When the interlocutor at the crucial appointment in Dusseldorf was late, Frings left the military administration after a quarter of an hour and said to his chauffeur: "Now hurry away, it couldn’t have gone better!"

The Catholic Church in Australia wants to respond to the bushfire disaster with a national initiative. Brisbane archbishop advocates for network to help rebuild – including pastoral care.

"We have all seen the apocalyptic images, even if we are not in the hardest-hit areas," said a statement released Tuesday by Archbishop Mark Coleridge, president of the bishops’ conference. Lives, houses and towns were destroyed, smoke shrouded large parts of the country, he said. "And there is no end in sight to the horror that confronts us with our powerlessness before the devastating force of nature," the Archbishop of Brisbane said.

Thanks to firefighters

At the same time, he praised the firefighters and the affected communities. "This has been Australia at its best, and we all stand with those who have been most affected and those who are putting their lives on the line to fight the fires."

But it takes more than words. "Expressions of solidarity are important, but not enough." Bishops are aware of huge nationwide effort, he said. Among them are many Catholic, ecumenical and interfaith initiatives, according to the archbishop. Typically, bishops respond to such challenges at the parish or diocesan level, but the magnitude of this crisis requires a national response by the entire church to complement and coordinate what is happening on the ground, he said.

Linking pastoral care and reconstruction

Specifically, the bishops’ conference proposes the creation of a national network linking those affected by the fires with potential helpers for day-to-day care, house clearance and rebuilding, and pastoral care and counseling. Further, it is a matter of working with nationwide Catholic organizations and religious congregations. Already over the weekend, a collection for the victims of the bushfires was held at all church services.

There should also be special prayer initiatives, according to the Bishops’ Conference. "A truly Catholic response to a crisis of this magnitude must draw strength from prayer that inspires concrete and compassionate action," Coleridge explained.

Financial support from state and church

Already on Monday, the state and church in Australia had announced financial aid for the victims of the bushfires. According to Prime Minister Scott Morrison, for example, an authority will be created to coordinate the reconstruction of the devastated regions with an initial budget of the equivalent of 1.24 billion euros. The Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn announced emergency aid of the equivalent of 1.865 Euro for affected families to.

Several million hectares of land have gone up in flames in Australia since October. More than 1.000 houses were destroyed, at least 25 people lost their lives. Experts say the number of dead animals is in the hundreds of thousands.

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