Tag Archives: Easter

Jerusalem’s Church of Holy Sepulchre to reopen after protest

A general view of the entrance and the closed doors of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City, February 25, 2018. REUTERS/Amir Cohen

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, revered as the site of Jesus’s crucifixion and burial, will reopen its doors after Israel backtracked on Tuesday from a tax plan and draft property legislation that triggered a three-day protest.

The rare decision on Sunday by church leaders to close the ancient holy site, a favorite among tourists and pilgrims, with the busy Easter holiday approaching put extra pressure on Israel to re-evaluate and suspend the moves.

After receiving a statement from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian clergy said the church would reopen Wednesday morning.

An Israeli committee led by cabinet minister Tzachi Hanegbi will negotiate with church representatives to try to resolve the dispute over plans to tax commercial properties owned by the church in Jerusalem, Netanyahu’s statement said.

Church leaders, in a joint statement, welcomed the dialogue.

“After the constructive intervention of the prime minister, the churches look forward to engage with Minister Hanegbi, and with all those who love Jerusalem to ensure that our holy city, where our Christian presence continues to face challenges, remains a place where the three monotheistic faiths (Judaism, Islam and Christianity) may live and thrive together.”

The Jerusalem Municipality, Netanyahu said, would suspend the tax collection actions it had taken in recent weeks.Mayor Nir Barkat has said the churches owed the city more than $180 million in property tax from their commercial holdings, adding that “houses of worship” would remain exempt.

Church leaders, in closing the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, said church-owned businesses, which include a hotel and office space in Jerusalem, had enjoyed a tax exemption.

While the review is under way, work on legislation that would allow Israel to expropriate land in Jerusalem that churches have sold to private real estate firms in recent years will also be suspended, Netanyahu said.

The declared aim of the bill, deemed “abhorrent” in a prior statement issued by church leaders, is to protect homeowners against the possibility that private companies will not extend their leases of land on which their houses or apartments stand.

The churches are major landowners in Jerusalem. They say such a law would make it harder for them to find buyers for church-owned land – sales that help to cover operating costs of their religious institutions.

A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on Israel to permanently cancel the proposed measures, which he said would “lead to escalating tension and to instability”.

A small minority of Palestinians are Christians, many of them in Bethlehem, the town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank – near Jerusalem – where Jesus is believed to have been born.

(Reporting by Ori Lewis, Mustafa Abu Ghaneyeh and Nidal al-Mughrabi; writing by Jeffrey Heller; editing by Mark Heinrich)

On Good Friday, Pope speaks of shame for Church and humanity

Pope Francis leads the Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) procession during Good Friday celebrations in front of the Colosseum in Rome, Italy, April 14, 2017. REUTERS/Max Rossi

By Philip Pullella

ROME (Reuters) – Pope Francis, presiding at a Good Friday service, asked God for forgiveness for scandals in the Catholic Church and for the “shame” of humanity becoming inured to daily scenes of bombed cities and drowning migrants.

Francis presided at a traditional candlelight Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) service at Rome’s Colosseum attended by some 20,000 people and protected by heavy security following recent attacks in European cities.

Francis sat while a large wooden cross was carried in procession, stopping 14 times to mark events in the last hours of Jesus’ life from being sentenced to death to his burial.

Similar services, known as the Stations of the Cross, were taking place in cities around the world as Christians gathered to commemorate Jesus’ death by crucifixion.

At the end of the two-hour service, Francis read a prayer he wrote that was woven around the theme of shame and hope.

In what appeared to be a reference to the Church’s sexual abuse scandal, he spoke of “shame for all the times that we bishops, priests, brothers and nuns scandalized and wounded your body, the Church.”

The Catholic Church has been struggling for nearly two decades to put the scandal of sexual abuse of children by clergy behind it. Critics say more must be done to punish bishops who covered up abuse or were negligent in preventing it.

Francis also spoke of the shame he said should be felt over “the daily spilling of the innocent blood of women, of children, of immigrants” and for the fate of those who are persecuted because of their race, social status or religious beliefs.

At the end of this month Francis travels to Egypt, which has seen a spate of attacks by Islamists on minority Coptic Christians. Dozens were killed in two attacks last Sunday.

He spoke of “shame for all the scenes of devastation, destruction and drownings that have become ordinary in our lives.”

On the day he spoke, more than 2,000 migrants trying to reach Europe were plucked from the Mediterranean in a series of dramatic rescues and one person was found dead. More than 650 have died or are unaccounted for while trying to cross the sea in rubber dinghies this year.

Francis expressed the hope “that good will triumph despite its apparent defeat.”

Security was stepped up in the area around the Colosseum following recent truck attacks against pedestrians in London and Stockholm. Some 3,000 police guarded the area and checked people as they approached. The Colosseum subway stop was closed.

Francis on Saturday is due to say an Easter vigil Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica and on Easter Sunday, the most important day in the Christian liturgical calendar, he reads his twice-annual “Urbi et Orbi” (“To the City and the World”) message in St. Peter’s Square.

(This version of the story has been refiled correct spelling in final paragraph)

(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Bill Trott)

Egypt’s Christian minority in sombre mood for Easter holiday

Maha Ragaay prays and lights a candle in front of a wooden figure of Jesus on a cross in her home at the Cairo suburb of Maadi, Egypt, April 14, 2017. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

By Osama Naguib

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (Reuters) – Members of Egypt’s Christian minority flocked to church on Friday but two church bomb attacks on Palm Sunday that killed 45 people have left many in a sombre mood over Easter.

Worshippers from the nearly 2,000-year-old Coptic Christian community attended church services, but the holiday to mark the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ was being observed in subdued fashion, according to church officials.

In the city of Alexandria, Christians congregated at Saint Mark’s Cathedral, historic seat of the Coptic Pope, to attend Good Friday prayers. Worshippers passed through a metal detector at the building entrance, where one of the bombs went off.

Rafiq Bishry, head of the church’s organizational committee, said he was surprised that so many people had come.

“We expected that people would be too scared to attend prayers but there was no need for our expectations because there are a lot of people here,” he told Reuters Television.

“This is a clear message to the whole world that we are not afraid,” he said.

Last Sunday’s attacks in Alexandria and the city of Tanta were claimed by Islamic State, which has been waging an insurgency against soldiers and police in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula.

The group has now stepped up assaults on Christians and warned of more attacks to come. It has claimed to have killed 80 people in three church bombings since December.

Maha Ragaay, a Coptic Christian teacher who lives in Cairo, said she had avoided watching television on Palm Sunday, afraid of seeing the bloody images broadcast after the bombings.

“I do not want (these attacks) to happen again, but I don’t feel that we’re doing anything to stop this,” she said, lighting a candle in front of a small statue of the crucified Christ as she celebrated Easter with family and friends at home.

“I believe the main point we should focus on (to solve this) is education.”

Ragaay said she would be marking Easter in a state of mourning for those who had lost their lives.

Following the attacks, the government introduced a three-month state of emergency which gives it sweeping powers to act against what it calls enemies of the state.

Copts make up about 10 percent of the 92-million population of mostly Muslim Egypt and are the region’s largest Christian denomination.

(Additional reporting by Mohamed Zaki in Cairo; Writing by Giles Elgood; editing by Michael Holden)

Iraqis celebrate Palm Sunday near Mosul for the first time in three years

Iraqis attend the first Palm Sunday procession in the burnt out main church of the Christian city of Qaraqosh since Iraqi forces retook it from Islamic States militants,

By Ulf Laessing

QARAQOSH, Iraq (Reuters) – Hundreds of Christians flocked to the Iraqi town of Qaraqosh on Sunday to celebrate Palm Sunday for the first time in three years, packing into a church torched by Islamic State to take communion at its ruined altar.

In October, Iraqi forces expelled the Sunni Muslim militants from Qaraqosh as part of a campaign to retake nearby Mosul, the country’s second-largest city seized by the group in June 2014.

Iraqis boys visit the burnt out main church as others attend the first Palm Sunday procession in the Christian city of Qaraqosh since Iraqi forces retook it from from Islamic States militants,

Iraqis boys visit the burnt out main church as others attend the first Palm Sunday procession in the Christian city of Qaraqosh since Iraqi forces retook it from from Islamic States militants, Iraq April 9, 2017. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

Iraq’s biggest Christian settlement until the militants arrived, Qaraqosh has been a ghost town as most residents are still too afraid to come back with the battle for Mosul, located 20 kilometers away, still raging.

But on Sunday church bells rang again across the town.

Hundreds arrived in cars from Erbil, the main city in autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan where most Christian had fled when Islamic State gave them an ultimatum to pay special taxes, convert or die.

“We need reconciliation,” Syriac Catholic Archbishop of Mosul Butrus Moshe told worshippers in the Immaculate Conception Church guarded by army jeeps.

Islamic State has targeted minority communities in both Iraq and Syria, setting churches on fire.

Scribbled “Islamic State” slogans could be still seen on the church’s walls while torn-up prayer books littered the floor.

Escorted by soldiers carrying rifles, the congregation then walked through Qaraqosh for Palm Sunday, the start of Holy Week that culminates on Easter Sunday, holding up a banner saying “In times of war we bring peace.”

Iraqis attend the first Palm Sunday procession in the burnt out main church of the Christian city of Qaraqosh since Iraqi forces retook it from Islamic States militants,

Iraqis attend the first Palm Sunday procession in the burnt out main church of the Christian city of Qaraqosh since Iraqi forces retook it from Islamic States militants, Iraq April 9, 2017. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

Christianity in northern Iraq dates back to the first century AD.

The number of Christians fell sharply during the violence which followed the 2003 overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and the Islamic State takeover of Mosul purged the city of Christians for the first time in two millennia.

“Almost 75 percent of houses were burnt so if people return where can they live?” said Aziz Yashou, a worshipper. “We call for an international protection in order to live here.”

(Reporting by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Susan Fenton)

President Discusses “Less Than Loving” Christians At Easter Prayer Breakfast

President Obama diverted from his script at the White House Easter Prayer Breakfast Tuesday morning to discuss Christians he feels are “less than loving.”

The President was encouraging Americans to love our neighbors as ourselves.

“On Easter, I do reflect on the fact that as a Christian, I am supposed to love,” the President continued. “And I have to say that sometimes when I listen to less-than-loving expressions by Christians, I get concerned. But that’s a topic for another day.”

He then laughed as he noted, “I was about to veer off, I’m pulling it back.”

The President then went on to talk about how he sees Easter.

“For me, the celebration of Easter puts our earthly concerns into perspective,” the President said. “With humility and with awe, we give thanks to the extraordinary sacrifice of Jesus Christ, our savior. We reflect on the brutal pain that He suffered, the scorn that He absorbed, the sins that He bore, this extraordinary gift of salvation that He gave us. And we try, as best we can, to comprehend the darkness that He endured so that we might receive God’s light.”

The event at the White House included guests like Rev. Al Sharpton, singer Amy Grant and Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Vice President Biden attended the event, quoting Pope Francis.

“As a people and as individuals, we are defined by our ability to enter into the mystery,” the Vice President said. “To live Easter is to live with the constant notion we can always do better.”

Thousands Gather At Lincoln Memorial For Easter Sunrise Service

A celebration of the risen Lord stood boldly in the nation’s capital Sunday as over 7,000 Christians gathered at the Lincoln Memorial at sunrise.

The service, organized by Capital Church in nearby Vienna, Virginia, began at 6:30 a.m. and latest an hour and a half.  Worship was lead by Newsboys lead singer Michael Tait plus a choir, orchestra and band.

“Washington, D.C. is arguably the one most influential cities in the world and I do believe it is important in the heart of the most influential city of the world to declare on Easter morning our faith in the risen Lord,” Capital Church Pastor Amos Dodge told The Christian Post. “I think it is important to reclaim some of our own spiritual heritage and we do that from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and declare our faith and trust in Jesus Christ, who died and rose again.”

Dodge’s sermon focused on the fact that Christianity is the only religion in the world where their God is not dead.

“Christianity is unique in that we know that Muhammad may have said some wonderful things and done some wonderful things, but he is in a tomb. Confucius was noted for wise sayings but nobody has heard from him in a long, long time,” Dodge declared. “When you compare the claims of Jesus Christ to all the religions in the world, no other religion has a risen savior, the one who came back from the dead.”

“You can trust a man who died for you,” Dodge continued. “Jesus died for us and then came back from the grave.”

The Easter Sunrise Service at the Lincoln Memorial began in 1979.  Pastor Dodge had been walking past the Lincoln reflecting pool during a spring day and God gave him the vision of the service.  The first service had 150 people in attendance.

This year, the service welcomed Christians from all 50 states.

British PM: “Christian Message Is the Bedrock of a Good Society”

The prime minster of Great Britain has written an Easter message where he called Christianity the “bedrock of a good society.”

David Cameron wrote the article for Premier Christianity that says all people, regardless of their faith, could celebrate the values of Easter: compassion, forgiveness, kindness, hard work and responsibility.

“Whether or not we’re members of the Church of England, ‘Love thy neighbour’ is a doctrine we can all apply to our lives – at school, at work, at home and with our families. A sense of compassion is the centre piece of a good community,” Cameron wrote.

Cameron admitted he’s not a “model church-going, God-fearing Christian” but that he relies strongly on his faith to guide him and his decisions for the nation.

The message from the PM was not without critics, many of whom pointed out the upcoming elections and wondered if the message was an attempt to sway voters.

“What’s ironic here is that the prime minister, through trying to convey he is not afraid to call himself Christian, has actually communicated that he seems terrified to identify as one. The prime minister is entitled to hold whatever religious beliefs he wants and should stand by them rather than cynically trying to woo the Christian vote ahead of May 7,” wrote an associate editor of the Catholic Herald.

Third Blood Moon Occurs Easter Weekend

The third blood moon lunar eclipse in the 18-month long tetrad will occur this Saturday on the morning of Easter Vigil and within the first night of Passover.

Earth’s shadow will cover the entire moon at 4:58 a.m. PST and the total eclipse will last approximately five minutes, making it the shortest eclipse in a century. The short timing of this eclipse is caused by the moon skimming the outskirts of Earth’s shadow, rather than passing through centrally.

Red light is created around the rim of the Earth when it covers the sun and that red light beams onto the moon, causing the blood red tint.

After Saturday, the next blood moon is expected September 28, 2015.

NJ Church To Host State’s Largest Easter Egg Hunt

A New Jersey church is hosting the largest Easter Egg Hunt in the history of the state.

Liquid Church will be hosting 14 different Jersey Egg Hunt events at four locations on April 4th and 5th, with over 100,000 eggs.

“At Liquid, one of our core values is that Church can be FUN. We hope families joining us for the Jersey Egg Hunt will have a chance to experience church in a refreshing way,” said Tim Lucas, founding and lead pastor, to Christian Post.

The church will be holding a 90-minute experience that will include a CD of worship music from the church’s worship team for each of the parents who attend the event.

The church was founded in 2001 and has about 3,500 attendees each Sunday.

“Our vision is simple: we take church to the people,” Pastor Lucas said. “There aren’t Easter Eggs in the Bible – but we want to build a bridge to families.”

“Outreach is our heartbeat as a church.”

 

Atheist Convention Refused Billboard Mocking Christians

The organization American Atheists showed their hatred toward Christians with a billboard campaign to promote their convention which was scheduled to fall on Easter weekend.

The group posted a photo of a young girl with bunny ears and text that read “An atheist convention on Easter weekend?  Looks like we’re skipping church again.”

The openly hate-driven billboard was rejected by a billboard leasing company in Nashville who said the signs were “offensive” and “aggressive.”

The anti-Christian head of the atheist organization immediately ran to media outlets about being held accountable for his hate speech.

“The double standard is as ridiculous as it is discriminatory,” said American Atheists President David Silverman in a press release.

“Our billboards feature a happy little girl wearing bunny ears. Our convention is, in fact, this April 2-5, which falls on Easter weekend. Is stating this fact what Americans, champions of free speech, find ‘aggressive?’ This is exactly why we are coming to the Bible Belt — we go where we are needed; it could not be more clear that we are needed here.”

Silverman repeatedly tries to claim the billboards aren’t aimed to anger Christians.