Visitors to Jerusalem during Easter season may have noticed some new additions in the Old City: security cameras on the Church of Flagellation, an iron gate at the Franciscans, protective barbed wire on the Armenian Monastery’s roof.
“This is not part of the Franciscan spirituality of welcoming,” noted Brother Francesco Patton, Vatican custodian, or Custos, of the Holy Land.
But Christian churches and worshippers in Jerusalem say they are facing an unprecedented rise in attacks that are upsetting a delicate balance of harmony in a city, revered by the three Abrahamic faiths, that is home to dozens of diverse communities and denominations.
It comes as Israel faces a domestic political crisis and a general rise in Israeli-Palestinian violence, with rhetoric by far-right government ministers fanning the flames of extremist violence.
Some fear the attacks belong to a wider campaign by Israeli extremists and settler groups to make East Jerusalem unwelcoming to Palestinian Christians and Armenians, furthering a long-term goal of claiming sacred lands.
Rallying around Jerusalem’s Christians are Israeli Jews and nongovernmental organizations determined to protect the city’s diverse makeup and freedom of worship.
Yet Christians say this support is no match for a growing culture of impunity among extremists encouraged by alleged government inaction and a lack of prosecutions.
“If there is no justice, there is no safety. If there is no safety, there is no freedom of worship,” says George, a Christian resident of the Old City. “If there is no freedom of worship, what is our future as a community?”
