The Holy Fire, Jerusalem – May 2021

Orthodox Christians flocked to Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Saturday to celebrate the Holy Fire ceremony, gathering in far greater numbers than last year because coronavirus restrictions have eased.

This season’s religious holidays in the Holy Land, home to religious sites sacred to Christians, Jews and Muslims, have been overshadowed by tragedy, as Israel mourns the death of 45 Jewish worshippers killed in a stampede overnight between Thursday and Friday at a religious festival in the north of the country. Children were among the casualties.

The ceremony, symbolizing Jesus’s resurrection, is one of the most colourful spectacles of the Orthodox Easter season, usually attended by many pilgrims.

With Jerusalem, under lockdown last year’s Holy Fire ceremony was held in the near-empty church that is revered by Christians as the site of Jesus’s crucifixion, burial and resurrection.

Jerusalem’s Greek Orthodox Patriarch then emerges from the crypt where Christians believe Jesus was buried, lights a candle with the Holy Fire and disperses it to the faithful