JERUSALEM –
Hundreds of Christians took part in the customary Good Friday procession through the limestone walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, commemorating one of the faith’s holiest days with noticeably thinner crowds amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
The procession, which normally draws thousands of foreign visitors, was unusually local: mostly Palestinian Christians, joined by some foreigners living in Jerusalem and some unfazed tourists.
The procession passes along the Via Crucis, or Via Dolorosa, the route Jesus is believed to have walked until his crucifixion. Squads of Israeli police set up barricades along the road, diverting shoppers from the bustling Muslim quarter of the Old City to make way for hundreds of pilgrims.
A group of young Palestinian Arab explorers led the day’s procession, passing through the 14 stations, each marking an event that happened to Jesus on his final journey. Hundreds of Palestinian Christians walked behind them. Behind them was a small parade from the Franciscan religious order, composed mainly of foreigners living in Jerusalem.
“We look forward to this every year,” said Munira Kamar, a Palestinian Christian from the Old City, who greeted cross bearers who stopped to kiss her young daughter on the cheek. “Of course, this year we are not happy with the ongoing war situation.”
Thousands of Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza, launched after the Oct. 7 Hamas killings and hostage-taking in Israel.
The impact of the war was clear in the final stations of the procession inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where Jesus is believed to have been crucified and buried before his resurrection at Easter. There, instead of the crowds that normally queue for hours in the churchyard, entry to the venue was easy.
The city’s streets were noticeably devoid of Palestinian Christians from the West Bank, who normally flock to the Holy City for Easter. Since October 7, Palestinian worshipers need a special permit to cross checkpoints into Jerusalem.
Despite the thinning crowd, merchants, whose heavy metal doors are usually closed on Fridays, opened them to tourists seeking Catholic souvenirs. But buyers were few and far between.
“Comparing last year’s Easter festivities with this year’s is like light and day,” said Fayaz Dakkak, a Palestinian merchant whose family first opened the store in 1942. His store was empty.
“Usually today people are happy and kids are excited,” he said. “But when you compare the children here who have water, food and a family with what is happening in Gaza, how can you be happy?”
An estimated 50,000 Christian Palestinians live in the West Bank and Jerusalem, according to the U.S. State Department’s international religious freedom report for 2022. About 1,300 Christians lived in Gaza, it said. Some Christians are also citizens of Israel. Many Palestinian Christians live in diaspora communities.
Some tourists braved the day. Carmen Ros, a lawyer living in Jerusalem, had managed to corral a group of pilgrims from Spain into visiting the country for a religious tour. The group rested in the shade outside the church.
“At first they were afraid of the situation,” he said, “but I told them here in Jerusalem, it’s safe, we don’t have violence. We are close to Gaza, but the Christian people are not the target of terrorism.”
The celebrations coincided with the third Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and worshipers once again flocked to the revered Al-Aqsa Mosque to pray. Despite fears that the ongoing war would lead to clashes at the revered Al-Aqsa Mosque, Ramadan has so far been peaceful, under tight Israeli security.
Sister Harriet Kabaije, a pilgrim from Uganda who moved to Jerusalem three weeks ago to live in a monastery, said she was keeping the people of Gaza in her prayers. She said she believed peace could be achieved in the region.
“Many people think that war here is natural,” he said. “But when Jesus was in Bethlehem, everything was peaceful. We know that people are suffering in Gaza, so we carry them in our prayers and pray that peace can return to this land.”
Separately, Pope Francis skipped the traditional Good Friday procession at the Colosseum in Rome, the Vatican said, to “preserve his health in view of tomorrow’s vigil and the Easter Sunday mass.”
It was the first time Francis had skipped the traditional and evocative event in his 11 years of papacy, an event that St. John Paul II skipped just before he died in 2005.
In Spain, several Good Friday street processions were canceled due to storms that provided much-needed rain to areas struggling with a prolonged drought. The brotherhoods of Seville were forced to suspend the processions of their giant cars with sculptures of Jesus of the Virgin for the first time in more than a decade due to bad weather.
In Chicago, hundreds of spectators flocked to the city’s Pilsen neighborhood to witness a Good Friday tradition: the 47th Stations of the Cross procession that reenacts scenes from Jesus’ last days.
“It’s the story we’ve all known since we were little kids,” said Jason Rodriguez, a Pilsen resident and event volunteer. “This reenactment shows the suffering, strength and passion that our Lord had.”
Associated Press writers Teresa Crawford in Chicago, Nicole Winfield in Rome and Joseph Wilson in Madrid contributed to this report.