IT IS hard to come away from a visit to the Holy Land at the moment feeling much hope for the future. The horrors of more than a year of war are felt everywhere; few are optimistic that it will soon come to an end.
In the West Bank, the daily indignities of occupation, long endured, are accelerating, alongside a sense among Palestinians that settlers can act with impunity with no recourse to justice. In Jordan, Israel, and the West Bank, pilgrimage and tourism has collapsed. On a visit to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem last week, my travelling companions and I were the only ones there. People are fearful for the future, fearful and distrustful of their neighbours, despairing of their leaders, and scathing about the lack of support from the international community.
I have just returned from a ten-day solidarity pilgrimage to the Anglican diocese of Jerusalem, hosted by St George’s College, visiting churches in Jordan, Palestine, and Israel. Southwark diocese has a covenant link with the diocese of Jerusalem, for which I am responsible, and the purpose of this visit was to explore how the mutual life in Christ of our two dioceses can be strengthened.
But this visit was also my first to the Holy Land, and our intensive schedule was intended to familiarise me with the land and its churches. During our ten days, we visited five Anglican churches, spending time with their leaders and congregations, as well as four Anglican schools and vocational training colleges.
EVERYWHERE we went, we heard of the hardships that Christians in the Holy Land are facing: the cruelties of occupation, both small and great; the lack of opportunity; the desire for a better life for one’s children; the concern that one day, not far from now, there may not be a living Christian Church left in the lands that Jesus walked. In addition, we heard again and again of a sense that the worldwide Church has forgotten them — or worse, sided with those who make their lives so hard.
But the apparent hopelessness of the current situation is not the only story to tell. There is an energy to the Anglican community that we met — an energy directed towards the mission of being salt and light in the world. There is a Christian entrepreneurialism that is seen in number of new activities that the churches are undertaking: youth clubs and camps; new care homes; new and expanded training and education facilities; care for the poor, the outcast, and the refugee.
In this way, the Anglican Church and other Churches of the Holy Land are truly living the life of Christian witness and divine hospitality that Jesus preaches: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”
The more that the Church in these lands suffers, the more it commits itself to live out this mission — even when it is their own who are unjustly imprisoned, as is the case of Layan Nasir, an Anglican woman attending St Peter’s, Birzeit, who is detained without charge, without the opportunity for visits or the ability to speak to her family, and without any knowledge of when she might be released (News, 28 June). We met her family, whose faith in the loving mercy of God is unshaken; we were privileged to pray with them, and we continue to pray for her release alongside all those unjustly imprisoned from 7 October 2023 onwards.
THE Church in the Holy Land does not exercise power. We heard of its minority status throughout the diocese of Jerusalem — a minority among a Muslim majority, and a minority among a Jewish majority. But it does have a unique calling. Its members worship the God who emptied himself, joining the oppressed, and securing victory from apparent humiliating defeat — a victory that is open to all, even the Romans who crucified him. This is the God who stands at the head of the Church in these lands, to whom they witness in their sufferings, and, through their witness, offer a vision of a world reconciled to one another and to God.
This vision is held and shared by many of the Christians whom we encountered, such as Daoud Nassar, whose family farm is threatened with confiscation and has been attacked and cut off by settler communities as well as by local Palestinians. Despite this, Daoud tells of his family’s refusal to hate, their refusal to be victims, their refusal to be enemies, and their non-violent work for peace with justice. Similar sentiments were shared by Alice Kisiya, whose family home has been seized by settlers, and who was arrested for a third time at the weekend in her peaceful campaign to have it returned.
On a noticeboard of St George’s Anglican Cathedral in Jerusalem, there is an old Christian Aid poster: “Pray not for Arab or Jew, for Palestinian or Israeli, but pray rather for ourselves that we might not divide them in our prayers but keep them together in our hearts.”
To stand in solidarity with the Christians of the Holy Land means to stand in solidarity with a hopeful future to all the peoples of the Holy Land: a future in which there can be peace with justice, in which the Christian witness of loving service that the Churches model inspires all who encounter them to a better way of living together.
Dr Martin Gainsborough is the Area Bishop of Kingston in the diocese of Southwark.