JERUSALEM – Christians in the Holy Land celebrated Good Friday amid signs that the coronavirus pandemic is subsiding, with places of worship open although with limited capacity but without the massive pilgrimages typical of Holy Week prior to Easter.
The virus continues to plague the Philippines, France, Brazil and other countries with a Christian majority, where the faithful will spend for the second consecutive year a Holy Week marked by restrictions on movement to stop the outbreaks caused by more contagious variants.
In 2020, with Jerusalem under strict confinement, small groups of priests performed the rites of this era, often behind closed doors. It was a radical change from previous years, when tens of thousands of pilgrims visited the city’s holy sites.
GOOD FRIDAY 2021 IN JERUSALEM
This year, Franciscan monks dressed in their characteristic brown robes led hundreds of faithful down the Via Dolorosa, repeating what according to tradition were the last steps of Jesus, while reciting prayers through loudspeakers at the Stations of the Cross. Another group carried a wooden cross along the route through the Old City, singing hymns and stopping to pray.
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, died and rose from the dead, is open to visitors, who must wear a mask and keep a safe distance.
“Things are open, but cautiously and gradually,” said Wadie Abunassar, advisor to religious leaders in the Holy Land. “In a normal year we ask people to get out. Last year we asked them to stay home … This year, in a way, we are silent ”.
The COVID-19 pandemic forces thousands of families to cremate their loved ones, even if this goes against the wishes of the deceased.
THE COVID-19 VACCINATION CAMPAIGN IN ISRAEL
Israel has carried out one of the most successful vaccination campaigns in the world, allowing it to reopen restaurants, hotels and places of worship. But air traffic remains limited by quarantine and other restrictions, preventing the arrival of pilgrims who used to crowd Jerusalem during Holy Week.
The main holy sites are in the Old City, in east Jerusalem, a territory that Israel captured along with the West Bank in the Six Day War in 1967. Israel annexed East Jerusalem and considers the entire city its unified capital, while the Palestinians want the two territories to be part of their future state.
Israel included Palestinian residents in Jerusalem in its vaccination campaign, but sent a small number to the occupied West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority has imported tens of thousands of doses for a population of more than 2.5 million people.
According to Israeli authorities, up to 5,000 Palestinian Christians will be allowed entry from the West Bank for the Passover celebration. Abunassar said he was not aware of the arrival of any large groups of tourists from there as had happened in previous years, possibly due to fear of the coronavirus.
THE ACTIVITY OF POPE FRANCIS ON GOOD FRIDAY
Pope Francis began Good Friday by visiting the Vatican’s COVID-19 vaccination center where, in the last week, volunteers have administered some 1,200 doses of the drug developed by Pfizer and BioNTech to poor and disadvantaged people in Rome.
The city-state purchased its own vaccines for Holy See employees and their families, and has given the surplus to the homeless. Francisco, wearing a mask, posed with some of the volunteers and vaccine recipients in the Vatican courtroom.
Later in the day, the pontiff will preside over the Stations of the Cross procession through a nearly empty St. Peter’s Square, an act that will replace the popular torchlight rite at the Colosseum.
GOOD FRIDAY IN FRANCE, IN CONFINEMENT
In France, the national curfew, at 7 pm local time, forces the faithful to advance the Good Friday celebrations. The traditional night processions will be drastically reduced or canceled. In the 19 departments with localized quarantines, devotees can go to mass if they sign the government’s “travel certificate”.
Although a third “soft” lockdown will be imposed on Saturday, the president, Emmanuel Macron, did not prohibit travel over Easter weekend, allowing people to change regions to reunite with their families on Friday.
Notre Dame Cathedral, which suffered a devastating fire nearly two years ago, will not celebrate Mass on Good Friday, but its priests will venerate its “crown of thorns” at its new temporary liturgical center in nearby Saint-Germain-l church. ‘Auxerrois.
For the second year, Spain it will run out of its traditional Holy Week processions and the churches will limit the number of worshipers inside. Many of them will follow the rites and prayers online.
In Philippines, the streets were unusually quiet and religious gatherings were prohibited in the capital, Manila, and in four other outlying provinces. The government decreed a new quarantine in the bustling region of more than 25 million people this week to try to contain a spike in coronavirus infections.
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