For the first time in nearly a hundred years, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, whose doors were closed due to the new Corona virus, will not receive Christians celebrating Easter in the Holy Land as families try to live with the command and celebrate in their homes According to the possibilities.
Christian denominations that follow the Western calendar of Catholics and Protestants celebrate Easter or Easter, next Sunday, while Orthodox Christians celebrate the feast on the 19th of this month.
The government closed the religious sites to visitors, among them the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, in which Christians believe that Jesus Christ was buried after the Romans crucified him in the year 30 or 33 AD, and they arrived in tens of thousands during the holiday.
The Palestinian historian Johnny Mansour confirms that this is the first time that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher has been closed during Easter in the last 100 years.
This year, only six clergy will attend the Mass, which will be chaired by the Apostolic Patriarch of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, Bishop Perpattista Pitsapala, inside the church, compared to about 1500 people who attended it last year, the Secretary of the Patriarch, Father Ibrahim Shomali, told Agence France-Presse.
The church will broadcast the mass to its citizens on television and social media networks, as it did last Sunday during the Mass of Palm Sunday, which was broadcast in the Arabic language and attended by more than 60 thousand people around the world, most of them from the Middle East, according to Shomali.
"We tried to adapt to the situation and organize central celebrations, which we broadcast on screens and create a positive atmosphere in homes," Shomali says. "Despite all the negative energy around us, we must seek some positivity," he says.
In the Christian neighborhood of the Old City, to the east of Jerusalem, whose streets and alleys have been deserted and all vital facilities closed for weeks, the Palestinian lady Sawsan Bitar adorns the corners of her house for the feast.
Sawsan, who spoke to France Press through the Zoom app, described her feelings of sadness for not being able to celebrate the holiday like every year. "The atmosphere is strange and depressing," she said.
And Israel, which occupied the eastern part of the city in 1967, counted more than 9,700 cases of the new virus that caused the death of 86 Israelis.
The number of injuries in the Palestinian territories reached 263, including 13 in the besieged Gaza Strip and one death in the occupied West Bank.
Sawsan and her granddaughters Naya and Talia sat inside the kitchen to paint Easter eggs that she says symbolized the new life.
The grandmother brought 10 boiled eggs, water and dyes in blue, orange, purple and red colors. The little girl dyed eggs and put them on a rabbit-shaped dish.
"I love to dye eggs because of rabbits and colors," said her granddaughter Naya, 3, who missed scouting teams, which usually roam the alleys during a Palm Sunday, beating drums and playing tunes.
As for Sawsan, who is keen to add joy to her home and family, she believes that "everything happens for a reason."
Sawsan, her daughter and the families of her two sons celebrated Palm Sunday in the garden of her two-story house, and AFP shared the family photos and prepared a small photo studio.
The pictures show the "studio" that decorated it from the occasion, spreading its floors with a green carpet and spreading on the outskirts of decorated palm fronds and rabbits figures.
But all this was not forgotten by Sawsan, who also prepared traditional cakes stuffed with pistachios, dates and nuts, that she lacked "to pray in the church."
"We are only five minutes away from the Holy Sepulcher, but we cannot get there (...) a feeling that breaks the heart," Sawsan said.
Last year witnessed the participation of more than 25,000 Christians after a Palm Sunday in the city of Jerusalem, while this year the traditional march did not come out of the monastery "Beit Faji" on the Mount of Olives to reach the Church of St. Hanna within the Old City, as was customary.
Last Sunday, the alleys of the Old City of Jerusalem were emptied of people, but a man imitated by Christ, relaxed his hair, wore a white robe and walked barefoot, breaking the silence of the city as he was seen leaning on a stick carrying the Bible and praying in the yard of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in front of its closed wooden doors.
The Christian families celebrated Palm Sunday as permitted by the possibilities.
In comparison with last year, Jihan Khoury, a teacher and mother of two children who has prepared a quarter of the traditional cakes for the feast, said that this year is overshadowed by "a difficult feeling, what is happening around us because of the virus made us appreciate the value of the least things."
"This year I did not bring palm branches, candles, or even new clothes, and I will not be able to visit my family who live in Haifa," said Jehan, who also decorated her home.
As for her 12-year-old daughter Eva, who followed the mass with her parents and brother via a computer screen, she feels the holiday is not complete. "There is something missing," Eva says. "I prefer to meet the rest of my family and friends and go together to the church and carry palm branches."
Francis seemed to be affected by a room from the town of Beit Hanina, north of Jerusalem, who could not decorate his house and prepare traditional Eid baked goods.
"The situation is tragic," says Francis, noting that he is about to lose his job due to the economic effects of the virus, which has forced many quarters to cut staff.
He adds that he was "touched" when he watched Pope Francis at the Vatican during the mass and the church looked almost empty.
Father Shomali stresses, "People thirst for spirituality and that there is a return to the depth of faith."
As for Jihan, she says, "The church is not only stones, but a meeting of family, friends and prayer."
