In the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, in an atmosphere of splendor and expectation of a miracle, the Holy Fire appeared, reports TASS. At about 2 pm, Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem distributed fire to the pilgrims, and representatives of 11 countries that sent their planes will receive it.
On the eve of Easter, the Holy Fire descends in the Kuvukliya – a chapel located in the center of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Jerusalem. It hides the cave of the Holy Sepulcher and the slab located there, under which the burial place of Jesus Christ was located.
Due to sanitary restrictions related to the coronavirus, up to 2.5 thousand people were allowed inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Before the pandemic, there may have been approximately 9,000 pilgrims there. Last year, for the same reason, the pilgrims did not participate in the ceremony.
Sharon Regev, Director of the Department of World Religions at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, said earlier at a press conference that planes from 11 countries will be able to arrive at Ben Gurion Airport for the Holy Fire: Greece, Georgia, Bulgaria, Belarus, Russia, Romania, Ukraine, Moldova, Poland, Kazakhstan, Cyprus.
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