There’s a veritable “boom of pilgrims in the Holy Land,” in the days before Easter, says a director of a Church-related office.

According to Franciscan

There’s a veritable “boom of pilgrims in the Holy Land,” in the days before Easter, says a director of a Church-related office.

This “will be the most crowded Easter since the outbreak of the second intifada in September 2000,” Father Athanasius Macora, director of the Franciscan Pilgrims Office, told the Italian episcopate’s SIR news agency.

Father Macora’s office makes the arrangements for pilgrims’ participation in celebrations in the region’s holy sites.

“From the huge number of requests for Mass, we estimate that more than 25,000 pilgrims are already crowding Jerusalem, and many more will come for Holy Week,” he commented.

According to the Franciscan, hotels are fully booked and many pilgrims are staying in Bethlehem. “Even now, people have to queue to visit such holy places as the Sepulcher and Calvary,” he said.

“And, from next Friday, the Orthodox too should be coming for their Easter, which coincides with Sunday, April 23,” he noted.

Father Macora reported large numbers of European pilgrims, as well as “Nigerians, Koreans, Americans” and “simple tourists attracted by the historical and archaeological sites of this land.”

“Pilgrims are attracted to the Holy Land not just by the Easter season,” he said, but “also by some stability in terms of security. Pilgrims are not at all a target, and their movements are safe.”