Christians Around the Globe Celebrate Easter

Easter, when Christians celebrate their belief that Jesus rose from the dead after his crucifixion, brought throngs of the faithful to holy sites and places of worship around the world Sunday.

In Jerusalem, thousands crowded the alleyways of the Old City on their way to Mass at the cavernous Church of the Holy Sepulcher, revered as the site of Jesus’ burial and resurrection. Muslim caretakers, the hereditary key-holders of the church, harried the visitors from altar to altar with cries in German of “Schnell, schnell!” (“Quick, quick!”)

At England’s Canterbury Cathedral, worshipers were urged to avoid the values associated with the “dot.com society.”

And in Vatican City, an estimated 150,000 people gathered in and around St. Peter’s Square to participate in an outdoor Mass and hear Pope John Paul II, wrapping up stamina-testing Holy Week ceremonies, urge humanity to defend peace and human rights and rid the world of racism, poverty and xenophobia.

The pope, who will turn 80 next month, made the appeal in his twice-yearly “Urbi et Orbi” (Latin for “To the City and the World”) message just before he read Easter greetings in 61 languages.

May Easter “overturn the hardness of our hearts,” John Paul said in a voice that was strong through much of the two-hour ceremony but grew tired near the end.

Elsewhere, among those singing hymns and praying for peace, were several hundred people in the only Roman Catholic church in Pristina, the capital of Kosovo--a building that was nearly empty last Easter amid NATO air raids on the southern province of Serbia, Yugoslavia’s dominant republic.

“Last year, everything was empty, and we felt the weight of the cross,” said Greta Krachinari, a 52-year-old principal and one of 15 people who attended services a year ago at Pristina’s St. Antonio Church. “This year, we can really feel the Resurrection.”

At Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher, two services competed--the Latin one, celebrating Easter, and the Orthodox Christian one, marking Palm Sunday. The Orthodox calendar is a week behind the Latin calendar.

Father Patrick Hussey, 63, from Toledo, Ohio, smiled as he talked about the competition between the Latin Mass, which was celebrated in front of the ornate, carved stone tomb of Jesus, and the Orthodox prayers, which were chanted behind the tomb.

There was “a little bit of friction,” he said, “but it’s all joyful.”

The massive, block-like church was built in the 4th century to mark the final stations along the last journey of Jesus in Jerusalem.

Britain’s Christian leaders, meanwhile, urged their flocks to keep faith alive in an increasingly secular world.

“Somehow, in the midst of the world in which all of you live--with all its temptations and distractions--you have to defend the citadel of your heart,” the new archbishop of Westminster, Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, said at Westminster Cathedral.

Dr. George Carey, the archbishop of Canterbury, warned of the seduction of the “dot.com society.” He also cautioned against what he called “Africa fatigue” in a society used to images of suffering.

“If it is not Mozambique and the floods, then it is Sudan and the forgotten war. If it is not Rwanda and the genocide, then it is Sierra Leone and the forced amputations of limbs from men, women and children,” he said. “All too easily, in the face of such overwhelming suffering, we can shrug our shoulders and turn away from the pain.”

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SOUTHLAND EASTER

A variety of services were held as Southern Californians celebrated Easter Sunday. B1