875 years have passed since, on 15 July 1149, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Fulcher of Angoulême, dedicated the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre (consecrated in 335). This took place after a number of reconstructions and enlargements by the Crusaders after the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099. As every year, on 15 July, the Franciscans of the Custody of the Holy Land celebrated a Solemn Mass on the anniversary of the dedication of the basilica. Some local religious and faithful were […]
The 47th Biblical and Theological Refresher Course (CABT) came to an end in Jerusalem on Friday 5th April after four intense days of lectures and guided tours. The Course, promoted by the Studium Biblicum Franciscanum , focused this year on the topic “Worship in the Holy Scriptures and in the Holy Land in the first centuries of Christianity”: the lectures, streamed live on the YouTube channel of the Christian Media Center, started on Tuesday 2nd April at the Immaculate Auditorium […]
On Tuesday 1 October, Fra Toufic Bou Mehri, of the Custody of the Holy Land, closed the gates behind him of the Franciscan convent in Tyre, a port city in the south of Lebanon, and together with his confrere, Fra Pierre Richa, left for Beirut. “A missile fell a few dozen metres from our convent,” says Father Toufic. “Two children who had sought shelter with us were injured, hit by some detritus. We are not here to be heroes, but […]
Dear youth, I would like to greet you from Cyprus. I am close to you on the other side. I think of you very much, you who are in the Holy Land... a place of pilgrimage which, unfortunately, has suffered in a special way because of the Coronavirus pandemic. Sometimes you do not know what to do, sometimes you think that there is no future and that is why you meditate on emigrating elsewhere... Please, do not let yourself get […]
