Netanyahu urges solitary Easter as Christians worldwide mark holiday at home

Prime Minister Benjamin urged Israel’s Christians on Sunday to keep the Health Ministry rules on social distancing and celebrate the Easter festival at home this year to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

“You are celebrating the festival at a hard time, an odd time, an unprecedented time where all of us, in Israel, in the Middle East and in the world are changing the way we behave in order to stop the coronavirus in our country,” Netanyahu said in a video message addressing Israel’s some 175,000 Christians.

“We are doing all of this to protect us and our families from the virus,” he said. “We are not going to synagogue, you are not going to church. I only ask that you continue to do so also over Easter, stay at home with your families, pray at home.”

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According to the prime minister, “If we all keep the rules of the Health Ministry we can beat the coronavirus and return to soon to normal life, maybe even within weeks.”

Pope Francis and Catholics around the world similarly marked a solitary Easter Sunday, forced to celebrate the most joyful day in the Christian calendar amid the sorrowful reminders of the devastation wrought by the coronavirus pandemic.

Normally, St. Peter’s Square would be awash in fresh flowers on Easter Sunday, with tulips and orchids decorating the piazza’s promenade in a riot of color to underscore Easter’s message of life and rebirth following Christ’s crucifixion.

This year, however, the cobblestoned piazza was bare. Police barricades ringed the square, blocking the tens of thousands who would normally flock to hear the pope deliver his noontime “Urbi et Orbi” speech and blessing “to the city and the world.”

Like other pastors around the world, Francis was to instead celebrate Easter Mass inside the largely empty basilica, while the faithful watched on TV at home. Rather than appearing on the basilica loggia to impart his blessing, he was to speak in front of the tomb of St. Peter, underscoring the solitude confronting all of humanity amid lockdown orders and quarantines to prevent contagion.

It was a scene being repeated around the world, and in Israel, with the faithful either staying home or practicing social distancing in those churches where public Masses were still being celebrated.

At his Easter Vigil on Saturday night, Francis urged the faithful to not let the darkness and sorrow of the COVID-19 pandemic rob them of hoping for a better future.

“Tonight we acquire a fundamental right that can never be taken away from us: the right to hope,” he said. “It is a new and living hope that comes from God.”

It was a message that was echoing in empty churches around the world on Sunday, including in the Holy Land.

In Jerusalem, only a handful of priests celebrated Easter on Sunday at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was crucified and resurrected.

In the heart of the capital’s Old City, the church — which had not been closed over Easter for at least a century — has been shuttered to worshipers along with all cultural sites in the Holy Land.

“Easter is a time for life,” said Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa, apostolic administrator of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, who arrived at the church under the watchful eye of Israeli security forces.

“Despite the signs of death everywhere, life will prevail as long as someone is giving life out of love for others,” he added, before entering the church.

A few faithful had gathered at the church’s inner courtyard, including one man in an immaculate white gown who had prayed in front of the closed door.