A drone's eye view of the Holy Land as Christians look to Easter

Seen from the air, the fragility of humanity as it must have been in the Holy Land in centuries past is plain to see – ancient monasteries clinging to precipices, tiny fishing boats on the Sea of Galilee, deserts gnawing at the edges of towns. By Stephen Farell

  • An aerial view shows fishing boats sailing in the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel, March 9, 2021. Picture taken with a drone (photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen)
  • An aerial view shows a baptismal site known as Qasr el-Yahud on the River Jordan near Jericho in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, 30 March 2021. Picture taken with a drone (photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg)
    For the Christian faithful, the Biblical journey and legacy of Jesus are written in stonework and monuments across the landscape, straddling modern political faultlines
  • An aerial view shows snow falling over the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site (in the foreground) and the Dome of the Rock, located on the compound known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount (in the background) on Ash Wednesday, in Jerusalem, 17 February 2021 (REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg)
    Yet modern pandemics, like ancient plagues, are no respecters of political and belief systems. For a year the Christian sites of the Holy Land, like the sacred places of Judaism and Islam, were under varying degrees of lockdown or restriction, and bereft of foreign pilgrims
  • Father Simon Khoury looks out as he opens the door of a room under renovation at his church in Kafr Kana, in northern Israel, 15 March 2021 (REUTERS/Amir Cohen)
    Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus, was the first area in the occupied Palestinian Territories to be forced into lockdown just before Easter last year, closing the Church of the Nativity. Other churches followed soon afterwards, including Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulchre, built over the sites where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected
  • The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, leads a Christmas midnight mass at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, 25 December 2020 (Abed Al Hashlamoun/Pool via REUTERS)
    "Death is stalking a lot all over the world," a despondent Apostolic Administrator Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa announced a year ago on Good Friday. By Christmas 2020 little had changed and Pizzaballa, by then elevated to Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, still cut a glum figure as he arrived in a rain-soaked Bethlehem for a muted celebration in front of a tiny congregation
  • An aerial view shows walls surrounding Jerusalem's Old City and The Dome of the Rock, located on the compound revered by Jews as the Temple Mount and Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, in Jerusalem, 30 March 2021. Picture taken with a drone (photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg)
    But on 19 December Israel had begun a rapid COVID-19 vaccination programme that gradually brought hope of a freer 2021. At least for Israelis, if not Palestinians, where the vaccine roll-out has been slower
  • An aerial view shows houses standing in Kafr Kana, a town that some Christians believe is the Biblical town of Cana where Jesus is said to have turned water into wine at a wedding, in northern Israel, 16 March 2021. Picture taken with a drone (photo: REUTERS/Amir)
    Nevertheless, on both sides of the Holy Land, as the Christian calendar progressed from Christmas to Easter, the faithful began to turn out again in greater numbers. At the sites revered as places of Jesus’s early life and miracles there were cautious, masked celebrations
  • A picture taken with a drone shows an aerial view of a monastery standing on the Mount of Temptation near Jericho in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, 2 March 2021. Picture taken with a drone (photo: REUTERS/Yosri Aljamal)
    In February beneath the Mount of Temptation, where tradition has it that Jesus was tempted by the devil, Jericho priest Father Mario Hadchiti said: "We have high hopes as believers living on this holy land, the land of prophets and saints, that we will overcome the pandemic and return to normal"
  • People pass two Stations of the Cross along the route of the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem's Old City, 21 March 2021 (photo: Reuters/Amir Cohen)
    Early hopes that this year's Easter celebrations might be completely free of restrictions proved over-optimistic. But at the start of Holy Week, the huge medieval doors of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre swung open to admit churchgoers
  • A boy receiving the sign of the cross during a baptism ceremony at the Jordan River, near Jericho in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, 18 January 2020 (photo: REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta)
    "We feel more hopeful that things will become better," said the Latin Patriarch Pizzaballa. "The message of Easter is life and love, despite all the signs of death, corona, pandemic, whatever, we believe in the power of love and life"