Palm Sunday celebration in Akkar, northern Lebanon. (Credit: Michel Hallak/L'Orient Today)
Christians across Lebanon celebrated Palm Sunday, which marks the beginning of Holy Week, according to reports from our correspondents. This year, Easter is being celebrated on the same day by both Catholic and Greek Orthodox communities.
At the patriarchal seat in Bkerkeh (Keserwan), the head of the Maronite Church, Cardinal Bechara al-Rai, centered his homily on the 50th anniversary of the start of the 1975–1990 civil war, commemorated each year on April 13. In Beirut, Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Elias Audi did the same, expressing hope that the Lebanese have finally “learned from the past” and will now commit to building a strong and united state.
In the Akkar region of northern Lebanon, rain and cold did not stop the faithful from attending church, reported our correspondent Michel Hallak. Worshippers gathered in churches and ancient monasteries, accompanied by children in their Sunday best carrying candles decorated with spring flowers.
Read also:
Rai believes that Lebanon has turned the page on its existence on the fringes of legality
From Halba and Kobayat to Andkit, parishioners filled churches before taking to the streets in joyful processions. They sang hymns and waved palm branches. In their homilies, priests prayed “for joy to return to Lebanon after so many years of suffering” and expressed hope that the country would recover after years marked by economic crisis and the war between Hezbollah and Israel.
Similar scenes were reported by our correspondent in the Bekaa Valley, Sarah Abdallah, particularly in Zahle, where Bishop Ibrahim Ibrahim, Melkite Greek Catholic Archbishop of Ferzol, Zahle and the Bekaa, celebrated the Palm Sunday mass at Our Lady of Deliverance Church. In his homily, he called for the rights of children in Lebanon to be protected and advocated for the creation of a Ministry of Childhood, “as exists in developed countries.”
Palm Sunday celebration in Akkar, north Lebanon. (Credit: Michel Hallak/L'Orient Today)
Palm Sunday was also celebrated in southern Lebanon, a region still healing from the wounds of war, in a precarious calm that has held for several days, according to our correspondent Mountasser Abdallah.
In the border town of Yaroun, in the Bint Jbeil district, the faithful attended what Father Charbel Nadaf, parish priest of Saint George Church, described as the “first mass since the end of the war.”
“We celebrated the feast in the parish hall, as the church remains in ruins, and we held the procession through the village streets,” he added.
Palm Sunday celebration in the Bekaa. (Credit: Sara Abdalah/L'Orient Today)
About 50 people from nearby villages and Beirut took part in the celebration, including three families who returned to Yaroun after the war. They are now living in homes that escaped destruction.
Despite the truce that came into effect on Nov. 27, Israel has carried out numerous strikes in southern Lebanon, the Bekaa, and even in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Palm Sunday in Yaroun, Bint Jbeil. (Credit: Muntasser Abdallah/L'Orient Today)
Reporting contributed by Michel Hallak, Sara Abdallah and Muntasser Abdallah.
