Pilgrims flock to Jerusalem after two-year break

Father Rami Asakriyah sprinkles holy water on palm fronds during the Palm Sunday service at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. [Reuters]

Prayers in Arabic and Latin echoed in the rotunda of Jerusalem's Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Sunday as Christians from around the world were once again able to attend Palm Sunday mass after two years of Covid-19 travel restrictions.

Around 500 worshippers passed through the huge wooden doors of the church that is the focus of the most important festival in the Christian calendar as the site where Jesus is believed to have been crucified and resurrected.

"After two years of Covid-19, of restrictions, of closed churches, today we are in a normal atmosphere. We have a lot of pilgrims, a lot of local Christians. For us, it's a kind of resurrection," the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, told Reuters.

Worshippers rattled palm fronds, a traditional gesture to remember the branches laid down by the crowds welcoming Jesus to Jerusalem as recorded by the gospels. The day marks the start of Holy Week for Roman Catholics.

"There's no better place to celebrate Holy Week, seeing that this is where all the events originally took place, and also seeing as the Covid-19 pandemic is mostly resolving, so it's safe enough to come this year," said Joseph Obiajulu, 26, from New York City.

Israel has only recently started to allow foreign tourists to enter the country again.

Holy Week is usually the high season for Christian pilgrims, but on Sunday, there was only about 20 per cent of the number of worshippers that normally fill the church, said Athanasius Macora, a Franciscan monk in his twenty-third year as secretary of the commission that negotiates disputes among the churches with claims to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

About 400,000 visitors entered Israel in 2021, a sharp decline from a record high 4.55 million visitors in 2019 who contributed $7.2 billion to Israel's economy.

Worshippers lit candles and knelt at the marble Stone of the Anointing, where it is believed Jesus's body was prepared for burial.

The Holy Sepulchre lies at the heart of the Old City's Christian Quarter in East Jerusalem, which Israel captured in a 1967 war and later annexed. The Armenian, Catholic and Greek churches share custody, and the Coptic and Syrian churches have rights.