On Friday 13 June, the feast-day of St Anthony of Padua, the Custody of the Holy Land in Jerusalem solemnly celebrates its patron saint and protector. From Thursday afternoon, the Franciscan friars of the Custody gathered in prayer at St Saviour’s church for the recital of the first Vespers. The decision of the friars to entrust themselves to the protection of the Saint from Padua dates back to a particular request for intercession addressed to him in 1917, thanks to […]
For thousands of years, pilgrims from every corner of the world have covered long distances to reach Jerusalem. Today, thanks to the initiative of Yael Tarasiuk and Golan Rice, these ancient routes can be travelled down once again and the experience of a pilgrimage in the Holy Land relived. The association “The Way to Jerusalem” offers the pilgrimage as an extraordinary opportunity to get to know the places of the Holy Land and its history, but also as an occasion […]
With deep emotion, we remember Father Stanislao Loffreda, born in Monteprandone (Italy), eminent biblical scholar and archaeologist, for decades the soul of the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum in Jerusalem, where he also served as director. An internationally renowned scholar, he devoted much of his life to the excavations at Capernaum, making decisive contributions to the understanding of the House of Peter and the structures of the Gospel village, and provided fundamental studies on Palestinian pottery of the Roman and Byzantine periods, […]
In the tragic scenario of Gaza, the Custody of the Holy Land, through the commitment and the zeal of Fra Ibrahim Faltas, Vicar of the Custody, remains in the front line in the humanitarian mission for the children of Gaza. Fr. Ibrahim has just returned from Rome, where only a few hours ago he was able to welcome more ill children from Gaza who have been taken into Italian hospitals for medical care, through the humanitarian channels activated by the […]
