Welcome to the President of Israel Reuven RivlinLatin Patriarchate
Jerusalem, 19April 2017
Dear Mr. President,
the Lord give you peace!
It is with great joy that we receive you here in our house.
It is a long tradition and became a part of the Status Quo that the President of Israel receives the Heads of the Christian churches at his residence towards the end of the civil year, during the Christmas festivities, to greet the Christian communities. It is always an important and interesting occasion, in which we even meet representatives of communities that otherwise we couldn’t see so often.
In these last three years, you introduced a new tradition. You wanted to exchange the visit of Christmas and meet all of us in our respective houses. We want to thank you for this sensibility towards the Christian presence in the Holy City and in Israel in general. It is not a news for us to see your interest for the Christian presence here. We know you belong to a family very well rooted in the Holy City and very well acquainted with the different local traditions and their respective communities, included ours. We appreciated, furthermore, your solidarity and clear words towards Christians in different occasions. Just to remind one, your double visit to the site of Tabgha in Galilee, after the sad incidents of few years ago.
It is important to meet the Christian communities, specially here in Jerusalem.
It is true: we do not have big numbers. But we are anyway integral part of the identity of the city, without which, Jerusalem couldn’t be the same city. The “House of prayer” for all the people (Is 56:7), which is Jerusalem, without this small but well rooted community, will lose its universal character.
Almost all the Churches during the Holy week, the week that precedes Easter, move from one place to another of the Holy City: from Mount of Olives to the walls of the Old City; from Cenacle to Gethsemane; along Via Dolorosa to the Holy Sepulcher, and so on. And this year, furthermore, all the Christians communities celebrated Easter in the same date. In a joyful confusion, then, typical of Jerusalem, we saw at the same time our local communities mixed with peoples coming from all over the world. From Egypt to Mauritius, from Europe to far Asia, from the Americas to Russia, Jerusalem was full of people with different colors, dresses, languages, traditions and liturgies that I am sure is impossible to find elsewhere in the world. Moreover, this year Easter almost coincided with the Jewish Passover. The Christian processions of the Holy week, then, quite often, crossed the streets together with thousands of Israelis who arrived in the Holy City for their pilgrimage. Despite some inevitable problems of organization, it was funny and at the same time fascinating to see the Israeli policeman, arrived to the Holy City to help for the festivities, trying to put order in theseprocessions in the Old City with theChristian pilgrims, and trying to guess the big mistery for them: how to understand who is Catholic, who is Orthodox and where they should go, and at the same time trying todirect the Jews go to the Kotel and the Muslims to the Mosques, all astonished and impressed by our strange liturgical vestments that they apparently never saw before… These colorful scenes of the Jerusalem life are unique and must be preserved. Yes, it is important to preserve and to guarantee the presence of the Christian Churches in Jerusalem, their communities and their traditions.
The fact that, despite our small numbers, as I said, you decided to come to us, makes your visit even more appreciated. We count on your support in this regard.
This is not the occasion to talk about our problems. We will find other opportunitiesto talk about our concerns.Not here. Not now.
In Easter, in this occasion, we want to celebrate, like the Jewish Passover, the Feast of the Feasts, the feast of the liberation from Egypt and the slavery. You teach me that the “Liberation from Egypt” for the People of Israel and for us Christians too, became the image of the liberation from any form of oppression. For us is the definitive liberation from the power of sin and death, through the resurrection of Jesus.
Was not easy to tell our people, after the massacre of Tanta and Alexandria, just at the beginning of the Holy Week, that Jesus won death and its power. And it is not easy to talk about liberation from slavery, when we see the images of Syria and other neighboring Countries and generally, the many difficulties that our communities are living nowadays.
But this is our faith. There is no faith without hope. And the Christian hope is already a certainty. Yes, today we are set free; despite violence and persecutions, we are free. The Freedom I am talking about doesn’t come from outside; it is not granted from others. Without neglecting the importance of the social dimension of freedom, during Easter we celebrate the freedom God grantedus as Sons of God. It is an attitude, it is a certainty of the heart that no one can take from us. Even death has no such power.This is what we celebrate and will keep celebrating, despite the death is surrounding us.
Mr. President, once again, thank you for your visit and your support.
May the Lord bless you in your effort to be element of unity among the different souls of the Country that you so well represent. We will keep praying for you and for your important mission and service to the whole community.
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.
Χριστός Ανέστη, αληθώς ανέστη
المسيح قام؛ حقاً قام
+ Pierbattista
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