Today
in Jerusalem the Holy Light, known in the West as Holy Fire, once
again descended into the Tomb of Christ as Patriarch Theophilos of
Jerusalem knelt in prayer within the Holy Sepulchre. This ceremony has
taken place just about every year for hundreds of years on Holy
Saturday, shortly after 2:30pm. With 33 candles in
each hand he distributed the Holy Light to the many present. Following
the Holy Light ceremony, the flame is taken
by plane to other Orthodox
communities in countries such as Greece, Russia, Ukraine, Serbia,
Bulgaria, Georgia and Romania. In Greece the Holy Light is usually
received with the welcome of a Head of State.
Though in 2021 the Israeli government implemented restrictions and protocols for attending the ceremony in light of the coronovirus pandemic, in 2022 many of these restrictions and protocols were lifted, though there were still capacity limits. This year, 2023, Israel has kept the capacity limit for a second consecutive year.
Israel has capped the ritual — normally an experience of being squeezed
among multilingual, suffocating crowds — to just 1,800 people. The
Israeli police say they must be strict because they're responsible for
maintaining public safety. In 1834, a stampede at the event claimed
hundreds of lives. Two years ago, a crush at a packed Jewish holy site
in the country's north killed 45 people. Authorities say they're
determined to prevent a repeat of the tragedy.
But Jerusalem's Christian minority —
mired in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and caught between Jews and
Muslims — fear Israel is using the extra security measures to alter
their status in the Old City, providing access to Jews while limiting
the number of Christian worshippers.
Israeli
authorities and church officials have publicly quarreled over the crowd
constraints for the past week. The Greek Orthodox patriarchate has lambasted the restrictions as a hindrance of religious freedom and called on all worshippers to flood the church despite Israeli warnings.
As
early as 8 a.m., Israeli police were already turning back most
worshippers from the gates of the Old City — including foreign tourists
who flew from Europe and Palestinian Christians who traveled from across
the West Bank — directing them to an overflow area with a livestream.
Angry
pilgrims and clergy jostled to get through while police struggled to
hold them back, allowing only a trickle of ticketed visitors and local
residents near the church. Metal barricades sealed off alleys leading to
the Christian Quarter. Over 2,000 police officers swarmed the stone
ramparts.
A few
Palestinian teenagers from the neighborhood saw a chance to make a buck,
promising tourists they'd get them into the church for some 200 shekels
($54) but leading them only to a nearby courtyard before asking for
more money.
Ana
Dumitrel, a Romanian pilgrim surrounded by police outside the Old City,
said she came to pay tribute to her late mother, whose experience
witnessing the holy fire in 1987 long inspired her.
“I
wanted to tell my family, my children, that I was here as my mom was,"
she said, straining to assess whether she had a chance.
In the limestone passageways on
Saturday, Christians pushed back by police were trying to cope with
their disappointment. Cristina Maria, a 35-year-old who traveled from
Romania to see the light kindled from the holy fire, said there was some
consolation in the thought that the flame was symbolic, anyway.
“It's
the light of Christ,” she said, standing between an ice cream parlor
and a dumpster in the Old City. “We can see it from here, there,
anywhere.”
For further reading, see: Holy Light of Jerusalem Resource Page