Huge Throngs Attend Vatican Rites : Few Pilgrims, Arab Strike Mark Easter in Jerusalem

JERUSALEM —  Sparse attendance at Easter services--apparently due to a fear of terrorism--and an anti-Israeli Arab merchants’ strike marked this year’s observances in the Old City of the Resurrection of Jesus.

“I have never seen it like this,” said Wadji Nusseibeh, the Muslim official who daily opens and closes the door of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the traditional site of Jesus’ Crucifixion and burial. Nusseibeh’s family has kept the keys to the church in a tradition dating to the 7th Century.

Staring into the nearly empty church courtyard, Nusseibeh said: “There were years when we had 13,000 or 14,000 people. This year not even 5,000 people have come for Holy Week.”

Israeli tourism officials estimated that 55,000 pilgrim were expected, the same number as last year. But tourism experts said the numbers were down by 20% to 30%.

There was no lack of pilgrims at the Vatican. There, an estimated 200,000 pilgrims and tourists joined in the day’s observances led by Pope John Paul II, who sent Easter greetings around the world in 49 languages.

The crowd, so huge it spilled out of St. Peter’s Square into the streets nearby, stood in warm sunshine for the celebration centering on Christianity’s central belief--that Jesus rose from the dead on Easter after being crucified on Good Friday.

This year Easter coincided with the 10th anniversary of what Palestinians call Land Day to commemorate a bloody clash in northern Israel in which six Arabs were killed in a protest over Israeli land expropriations.

Arab merchants closed their shops to mark Land Day, a move that resulted in a serious loss of business on what is traditionally one of their busiest day of the year. The strike and the lack of visitors cast a pall of silence over the normally bustling Old City.

Tour guides complained that Middle East tension cut sharply into the number of pilgrims who come to the Holy Land during Easter.

“The Americans are staying away this year,” Israeli tour guide Nathan Amoral said. “That does not show bravery.”

By not coming, he said, “the American people are showing they are afraid of (Libyan leader Moammar) Kadafi.”

At the Vatican, John Paul touched on the issue of terrorism. In an impassioned Easter peace message, he implored the world to reject modern man’s litany of death, including war, terrorism, torture and abortion.

“Men continually inflict death upon others, people who are often unknown, innocent people, people not yet born,” John Paul said during his traditional “Urbi et Orbi” (To the City and the World) message.