Epilogue

Greek Orthodox Christians outside New Gate. They are refused to enter the Old City of Jerusalem. Notice the cameraman and the journalist in the middle.

Just some 100 meters from the crowd, youths are playing soccer by the city wall.

Another 100 meters further down a group of Greek Orthodox Christians have gathered after they were barred from entering the Old City through New Gate. This is my interpretation since they looked pretty depressed except for the man in the middle who was reading to them from the Bible trying his best to cheer them up. Still my interpretation, but this is what it looked like to me.

Herodes's Gate

It certainly is Easter in Jerusalem.

Last night the Greek Melkite Catholic church, which is called the Church of Annunciation - held a mass. The hostel that I lodge in, and that is run by this denomination, is adjacent to the church and right below my room. The clock tower is right above.

At midnight they started ringing the church bells, but in a way I have never experienced before. One "Doing" every minute, every now and then two "Doings", and sometimes three "Doings". After a while I decided to phone the receptionist to ask him what was going on, and if he could stop it. Obviously he couldn't. He said it would soon stop.

So there I was in bed waiting for the next "Doing" and wondering whether it would be just one "Doing", two "Doings" or three"Doings."

The church bells rung for about 3 hours.

Then about two hours later the callers from the many mosques started calling their community to prayer. They don't start calling at the same time.

The old city was so full of noise this morning that one could hardly hear the cocks craw; besides they normally get up later than all the religious freaks.

In other words; not much sleep tonight.

As I got up later in the morning, I heard drums and bagpipes playing. It made me think of Edinburough and May 17 - our national holiday with parades and everything back home in Stavanger.

Apparently, all the "Doings" and parading were taking place around the Holy Sepulchre - Jesu gravkirke - in connection with the annual ritual of the Holy fire - look BBC.com/news - go to Middle East - a ritual that is considered a miracle by the Greek Orthodox Christians.

I decided to walk around the Old city today.

Very many soldiers and security people today due to the mentionded Easter Saturday ritual.

Therefore the Jaffa and the New gates were closed - a piece of news BBC "missed;" a piece of news I believe is much more important to get across to the world public than what was actually covered - These two mentioned gates lead to the Orthodox quarter.

As you see from the bottom picture, the Herodes gate, one of the two gates that lead directly to the Arab quarter, everything was quiet as was the case too at the other gates.

Later during the day, Joaad - the taxi driver - told me that on Fridays the soldiers make it difficult for the Muslims to pass the Damascus and Herodes gates on their way to the mosque.

For the Jews, he said, there are never any difficulties.

So why didn't the Greek Orthodox Christians enter by one of the other gates then that were open?

They could have, and some probably did, but as they would have got closer to the Holy Sepulchre inside the Old City they would have been stopped by police barriers, something I experienced myself earlier this same morning.

Take a look at this clip from you tube which was sent to me in the end of April:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53vViKeUPcY

The airport checking was thorough, and professional. They looked through absolutely everything, scanned through my laptop, asked me about what I had been doing etc., but did not take anything. Not a pleasant experience, but more or less as expected.

End of project. End of monologue.

Thanks for reading my blog from Al Quds and Palestine.

Henrik