Thousands of Christians have celebrated the traditional “Holy Fire” ceremony of blazing candles at the Holy Sepulchre church, Christianity’s holiest site in Jerusalem, to mark the eve of Orthodox Easter. Saturday’s ceremony comes against a backdrop of rising tensions with Israel, which imposed new restrictions on attendance this year that it said were needed for safety. More than 150 Palestinians have been injured in the Israeli raid of Al-Aqsa compound – Islam’s third holiest site. This year, joyous, shouting faithful crowded together unmasked, holding aloft wads of thin candles bound together to produce thick orange flames that danced inside the darkened Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the rest of the Old City lies in East Jerusalem, occupied and later annexed by Israel following the Six-Day War of 1967.

Source: Ethiopian News April 24, 2022 13:03 UTC