JERUSALEM, Aug 8, 01 (FIDES/CWNews.com) - The patriarchs and leaders of churches in the Holy Land are inviting Christians in the Holy City and the world over to join in a period of prayer for peace.
>From August 15 to 28, every day at 6 in the evening there will be a special prayer service in one of the many different churches in Jerusalem. Armenians, Catholic and Orthodox Syrians, Ethiopian Orthodox, Copts, Lutherans, Anglicans, Greek Catholics and Latin Catholics will take turns hosting the believers in their respective churches.
(Although the Greek-Orthodox Church has said it will join the initiative, it will not make its church available because it has been without a patriarch since last December. The election of the new patriarch, postponed because the Israeli government vetoed five candidates, has been set for August 13. Only yesterday the Israeli government lifted the veto against those five clerics.)
Announcing the prayer-for-peace initiative, the Christian leaders say:
"We are greatly concerned at the deterioration of the situation in the Occupied Territories of the Holy Land: many families have been made homeless; the closures [of the Territories by the Israeli government] have turned towns and cities into detention camps; the number of unemployed has risen dramatically resulting in tens of thousands of hungry for their daily bread.; whilst our children are confronted daily with a picture of bloodshed, violence, assassination and murder. Hatred and desire for revenge is rampant on both sides-- Israeli and Palestinian."
Calling on all Christians in the Holy Land to join in intensifying prayers for peace, justice, and reconciliation, the heads of the churches also invite Christians everywhere to join, urging, "brothers and sisters around the world" to "link their prayers with ours at this special time".
One observer in Jerusalem recalls for Fides that "since the new Intifada began 550 Palestinians and 150 Israelis have died. We seem to have lost sight not only of prospects for peace but even of the horizon itself. Prayer will help us to hope that all this evil will come to an end".
The new Intifada (which broke out at the end of September in 2000), Israel's retaliation, and Palestinian guerilla warfare have plunged the people of the Holy Land into a situation of misery and insecurity. Tourism and pilgrimages have come to a halt; many hotels have closed. Farming is also in crisis, because in some cases crops have been destroyed and in other cases they have not been sown or tended because of the farmers' fears about their security and their future. An Israeli tells Fides: "People have stopped tending their crops, they are afraid to leave the house. Insecurity reigns everywhere, in the markets, on the streets, within the home walls."
CWN
8. august 2001