The day of the Invention of the Holy Cross is celebrated on 7th May and is one of the traditional feast-days that is still celebrated in the Holy Land even after the change in the Liturgical Calendar in 1969. The invention (or “finding”) of the Holy Cross by St Helena, the mother of the Emperor Constantine, took place in Jerusalem in 327 in a place not very far from Calvary. Although the liturgical reform of 1969 suppressed some feast-days for […]
"It’s the first time that I have seen the Basilica of the Nativity so empty: I arrived at the same time as the number of pilgrims increased, immediately after the last intifada, so I had never seen the Basilica like that". It is Fr. Ananiasz Jaskólski, the first sacristan of the Basilica of the Nativity and deputy appointee for the Status Quo for Bethlehem who is speaking, telling us what happens in the Basilica after the total closure of 84 […]
