Pummeled with palm fronds

There's nothing that says "Peace on earth and good will towards men" quite like pummeling police with palm fronds in the church where tradition says Jesus rose from the dead.

In the latest ironic chapter in the bitter relations between the feuding sects that have carved up Christianity's most revered site, Armenian and Greek worshipers got into a brawl on Sunday inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

Armenians and Greek Orthodox worshipers celebrate Easter on a different calendar, so today was their Palm Sunday.

The latest perceived slight came when a Greek priest entered an area where Armenian priests were conducting services.

Armenian priests responded by kicking the Greek priest out, pushing him to the ground and kicking him.

When police tried to break up the brawl, according to the Associated Press, the cops were pummeled with palm fronds.

"This behavior is criminal and unacceptable by all means," the Greek Orthodox Patriarch in the Holy Land, Theofilos III, said later.

Such brawls are hardly uncommon in this church.

For more than 150 years, the feuding religious groups have maintained a formal "status quo" agreement that strictly divides and regulates use of the church.

But the deal did little to stop the fights. Tensions rise around the Christian holidays and it's not that surprising to see priests in ceremonial robes pushing and shoving each other in various corners of the church.

The ongoing feuding may be one reason why some of the priests who take care of the church skulk around with a scowl instead of a beatific smile...

(AP Photo/Kevin Frayer, above right: Police trying to break up the Sunday brawl.)

Comments

[Edie]

This is really a shame.

I can't help but think that there HAD to be something more than the Greek priest simply wandering into the area the Armenian clergy were conducting service for that kind of physical response. Right? Right?

[ed myob]

What else is new?

Religion is man's worst addiction!