Anglican Communion News Service

5 April, 2001

[ACNS] The Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, The Rt Revd Riah Abu-El-Assal, called for religious tolerance and understanding in his homeland. While in London for a meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Jerusalem 2000 Committee, a fund-raising and awareness-raising project of the Anglican Communion, Bishop Riah spoke with emotion about the situation of Anglican Christians and indeed all Christians face in the Holy Land. The bishop said, "I simply cannot ask my people to hide in their homes as Holy Week approaches. This is the most sacred time for Christians all over the world so you can imagine how it feels, and what it means, to the people who literally live in the place where the story of Jesus' Passion and Resurrection took place."

The bishop spoke of the devastation felt by the Christian community during the millennium, at Christmas Eve 2000, when Our Lord's birth at Christmas was literally cancelled in Bethlehem. Bethlehem is a place where there has been a large Palestinian Christian community, although it is now diminishing.

"How can I announce to my people that Easter is now cancelled after they barely could cope with the reality of not being able to worship freely at Christmas in a city where the Holy Child was born?" Bishop Riah said. The Jerusalem 2000 Committee renewed their pledge to support the unique ministries of the 34 institutions of medical care and education sponsored by the small, but vibrant, Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East.

"We have so many things to be hopeful for here in Jerusalem, but the one thing we need more than anything else is peace, peace with justice, peace with integrity, peace with dignity. We pray this Holy Week that it will happen, but we need the prayers of the entire Anglican World and other people of good will to make this dream a reality," Bishop Riah said.

In many parts of the Anglican Communion it is a tradition to focus on praying for the Church in the Middle East on Good Friday and in the United States a traditional Good Friday Offering is received. Bishop Riah said "More than ever before do we need a sacrificial response to this annual offering."

The bishop spoke of hope and expectation on Pentecost when there will be an ordination of two Palestinian young men who will be received into the priesthood of the Episcopal Church. Four other young deacons will be ordained in June 2001. The bishop was also looking forward to the visit of the Consultative Committee of St George's College on Trinity Sunday along with a group of spouses of bishops from the Episcopal Church in the United States. This group will be led by the Primate's wife, Mrs Phoebe Griswold.