The streets of the Old City of Jerusalem were filled with the sound of staffs beaten along the route connecting the convent of Saint Savior with the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre. They were the staffs of the kawas, the guards who traditionally serve the Churches of Jerusalem, who this morning led the procession of the friars of the Custody of the Holy Land who went to the place of the Death and Resurrection of Christ to celebrate the Exaltation […]
“In recent years, your faces have somehow become part of the status quo of the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre”, says, with a touch of affectionate irony, the Custos of the Holy Land, Fr. Francesco Ielpo, addressing the researchers and young archaeologists of Sapienza Università di Roma who, from 2022 to the present, have taken turns working at the excavation site in the sanctuary dear to the entire Christian world. These words were spoken on the afternoon of September 17, […]
Mujeidel, in the locality of Migdal HaEmek, is a place that tells the story of a constant presence of the Franciscan family. A small, silent convent, with a garden made of rocks and plants. A place that preserves the features of a hermitage, and which the guardian, Fr. Fadi Shallufi, carefully preserves. And it is here, a few kilometres from Nazareth, that the Custos of the Holy Land, Fr. Francesco Ielpo, wanted to celebrate the feast of the Holy Archangels. […]
On the day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the Custos of the Holy Land, Fr. Francesco Ielpo, and the bishop of Santander, Monsignor Arturo Ros, signed the twinning agreement between the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the Monastery of Santo Toribio de Liébana (Cantabria), where the Lignum Crucis is kept, the largest relic of the Cross of Christ currently preserved. "This twinning constitutes a very profound bond between this sanctuary and the place of the […]
