Jerusalem Patriarch complains over incident involving police, Armenians

PanARMENIAN.Net - Several Israeli police checkpoints prevented thousands of Christians from reaching the Holy Sepulcher and being among the first to see the light come out from the church.

Following the incident, which involved Armenian believers and clergy members too, the Armenian Patriarch expressed a verbal protest to Israel’s foreign ministry, Chancellor of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem Hovnan Baghdasaryan said in a Facebook post.

According to Baghdasaryan, the disagreement was shortly resolved, but on Armenian pilgrim was briefly detained.

Hundreds of believers have arrived from around the world to watch the ceremony.

Earlier, Priest Samuel Aghoyan representing the Armenian Patriarchate in Jerusalem had an argument with a representative of the Coptic Church on the issue of how the Holy Fire appears.

For more than 1,200 years the ritual of the Holy Fire has been performed in Jerusalem every Easter, with a flame "miraculously" appearing at the darkened tomb of Jesus to symbolize the Resurrection.

Aghoyan said he has seen three times how the patriarchs lit the bundles of wax candles from an oil lamp inside the empty tomb, adding that there was nothing mysterious about the Holy Fire.