The Silence of the Stones

Sunday 29 March 2026
The Very Reverend Nicholas Papadopulos

Words from the Gospel according to St Luke: ‘Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, order your disciples to stop’. He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out’.

The war in the Middle East means that worship at the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian holy places of Jerusalem has been suspended on grounds of public safety. There was no Palm Sunday procession in the city today, and, this morning, the Latin Patriarch was refused permission even to enter the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to say Mass.

It’s been two years since I spent Holy Week in the place where it all happened. The experience of walking in the ecumenical Palm Sunday procession was overwhelming and – simultaneously – troubling.

It was overwhelming for two reasons: the location, and the numbers. The procession began at Bethphage, on the Mount of Olives. It made its way down the steep and narrow path into the Kidron Valley, and then up and into the Old City through the Lion Gate, ending at St Anne’s church, by the Pool of Bethesda. Each of those placenames rings with a storied Biblical resonance. We were walking in the footsteps of Jesus or, at least, we were walking very close to the footsteps of Jesus. And there were thousands of us, from a host of Christian traditions, speaking a host of different languages.

At the same time, it was troubling. The numbers were not what they ought to have been. We were told that the Christians of the West Bank had applied for 20,000 permits to travel to Jerusalem for Palm Sunday. 2,000 had been issued and issued so late that many of their recipients could not make the necessary arrangements to travel. The war on Gaza was in its fifth month; Jerusalem was devoid of tourists; and yet on Palm Sunday international pilgrims appeared from nowhere – and from everywhere – and they dominated the procession. Palestinian Christians often describe themselves as the living stones of the Holy Land. Palm Sunday is a huge day for them. It’s the day when Jesus enters their city; yet on this Palm Sunday the living stones were as silent as the stones which Jesus promised would shout were the crowds that greeted him to be quiet.

Perhaps that’s why I found myself getting annoyed at the exuberance of some of my fellow internationals. ‘We’ were celebrating ‘our’ festival in ‘their’ city, and ‘they’ were missing. A group of pilgrims from the Philippines sang along to a worship song with great excitement. The lyrics appeared to be ‘Jesus Christ: he’s the man, I’d like to shake him by the hand’. The tune was so cheesy that it would have been rejected by Showaddywaddy. It set my teeth on edge. My friend Father Jean-Louis was thrilled by it all. A recently-ordained Roman Catholic priest from France who had been sent to Jerusalem by his bishop by way of clergy finishing school, Jean-Louis messaged me from somewhere in the throng ‘Amazing this joyful procession to express our joy to believe in Jesus Christ’. He was right; it was amazing; and yet I could not help feeling that there was a deep sadness to it.

I was carrying a placard produced by the Palestinian Christian group whose Bible study I attended every week. Determined that the procession should somehow bear witness to the suffering of Gaza, it bore words of Jesus from St Matthew’s Gospel, ‘I was hungry, and you gave me food’. Under this were printed the names Holy Family, and St Porphyrius, the two Christian churches in Gaza in which people were sheltering from the incessant Israeli bombing. And at the top of the placard appeared the word ‘Hosanna’, sung so cheerily in English Palm Sunday processions, yet whose meaning is often forgotten. ‘Hosanna’ means ‘Save us, Lord’.

As we descended the Mount of Olives an American woman read the placard. ‘I’m praying for a mighty wave of awakening in Gaza’ she confided in me, ‘and for a great outpouring of the Spirit’. Musical claptrap and now this. ‘Really?’ I said, tartly. ‘I’m praying for a ceasefire’.

I walked on – in fact, I probably stalked on, incensed. Looking back I suppose that (maybe) the woman was praying for a ceasefire, too. But it didn’t feel like it. Gaza was burning; we were entering a city that was occupied; the Christians of the land were largely absent; and the prevailing concern seemed to be slapping Jesus on the back and getting fired up about revival.

And then my mood changed again. A nun read the placard and told me that she was praying for two members of her order who had refused to leave Gaza and had insisted on staying, to minister to those taking refuge in the church of the Holy Family. Together we climbed up out of the valley, entered the Old City, and reached St Anne’s, where we were addressed by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, the Cardinal who was refused permission to say Mass this morning. He spoke to the people of Gaza directly. Do not be afraid, he said; God is with us; Christ is risen; and love will triumph. Amen, I thought, amen.

It was a conflicted day, and it ended with unintended pathos. Traditionally, after the ecumenical procession the Christian Scouts of Jerusalem process around the city walls with a marching band. This Palm Sunday there was no band, out of respect for the dead of Gaza, and there were fewer Scouts. The Bethlehem troops had applied for 500 permits to travel and had received five. Their sparse numbers and quiet witness brought a solemn dignity to the day that the noisy international pilgrims had failed to achieve. And through their silence the living stones shouted their grief to the heavens.