Deprived of visitors, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, in the old city of Jerusalem, is haunted by an unusual calm.
Christianity’s holiest site has been emptied of its usual crowds of visitors by the war between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Briton Noel Gomez, a Catholic, leads Christian pilgrimages and stands where worshipers say Jesus Christ was crucified, buried and resurrected.
It was practically empty.
“I am shocked to see this,” he told AFP. “I thought there might be at least 50 or 100 people here. It’s just you and me here now.”
At the beginning of November, he had to accompany a group of around sixty people to church. But since the October 7 attacks against Israel, these tours have been canceled.
Under normal circumstances, there would be snaking lines of people wanting to visit the final stages of the cross in the church in annexed East Jerusalem.
It generally takes “an hour and a half to two hours in line” to get to the last station, the Marble Edicule, the presumed tomb of Christ, said Gomez, 50.
Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7 killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli authorities. It was unprecedented in terms of violence and scale.
In response, Israel pledged to eradicate Hamas and has since relentlessly bombed Gaza, killing more than 14,000 people, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas government.
“It’s like the Covid feeling again. Very sad,” said Israeli tour guide Naomi Miller, visiting the site alone.
“One of the holiest places in the world for Christians. And it’s empty.”
Coptic priest Kyrillos Tandihalemy, 41, said he appreciated the quiet which allowed him to pray and meditate.
Normally, he says he would have to stand for hours because people “ask priests to pray for them – 10 to 20 people every day.”
The lack of crowds means “it’s easier to park and take photos,” said a smiling 43-year-old woman who asked not to be identified.
She prays for paying customers who can’t do it in person.
Their prayers were printed and she photographed them in front of the Stone of Anointing, the rock slab where tradition says Jesus’ body was prepared for burial.
Franciscan Sister Maria Celina Mendoza said she had mixed feelings. She arrived in September for a three-month stay, but spent nearly a month “locked up” in a pilgrims’ house in the Holy City after October 7.
Returning at the beginning of November, she felt “a great emotion to be able to enter alone” in the tiny sanctuary, with “no one telling her to come out”.
The 69-year-old Mexican nun, a missionary in Angola, added: “On the other hand, the fact that all these people… are gone makes me really sad.”
Without pilgrims or tourists, residents now have “easy access, let’s say, that we don’t have all the time,” said a 39-year-old Greek Orthodox Palestinian woman, who preferred not to give her name.
But “the reason behind it is so sad,” she said.
“This is the first time I can come back, to have the chance to pray and maybe light a candle and pray for peace.”
Much of the current activity around the sacred building is linked to restoration work begun early last year.
Franciscan Father Stéphane Milovitch, director of the Cultural Heritage Office of the Custodia Terrae Sanctae in Jerusalem, said restoration work on the basilica’s sidewalk and some archaeological excavations had “restarted” with the return of some Palestinian workers.
The 57-year-old Frenchman said he had also noted the return of certain “Filipino, Indian and some South American” immigrants.
“The Church of the Holy Sepulcher unites Christians separated elsewhere” because it is administered by the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Orthodox communities, and attended by the Coptic and Syrian Orthodox churches, he said.
And without crowds, the current “catastrophe” at least offers “time to meditate and bear in our prayers the suffering of all”.