The City is bustling with action. Preparations for the pope's visit: which I think is a misnomer because it's also the greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch's visit. Both leaders have organised this meeting to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Pope Paul VI meeting the then Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras in the streets of Jerusalem. So it's actually a joint venture.
However the ugly debate over the Last Supper Room and the rise of anti-christian violence this week have put only the Roman Church into the headlines. But today happily there's one article in the newspapers that featured both leaders as making one visit. It's better to call it a Patriarchal visit
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Enormous Vatican flag at
the entrance of the
Notre Dame Hotel |
Despite jewish protests and violence, vatican flags and buntings are being strewn over the eaves of buildings and across the streets of the Christian Quarter. Security is super tight because the pope refuses to use the bulletproof popemobile. He wants to get closer to the people. But this is having the exact opposite effect: because there is a real physical danger to the pope's life from jewish extremists, crowds are being kept away from the pope. Extreme measures are taken ... with a timetable even of the opening and closing of roads, streets and entire quarters within the Old City for 3 days. The villages on the Mt. of Olives are worse off. The muslim families are unhappy because they'll have to stay indoors for 3 days. That's because both pope and patriarch are living in monasteries up on the Mt. of Olives. The security there is hypertight.
This evening the bells of the Holy Sepulchre were ringing out. The Ecumenical Patriarch had arrived and made a solemn entrance into the Basilica. Tomorrow the Roman pope will arrive from Amman. A historical pilgrimage for both leaders.
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