Dear Friends of Taybeh,
Sending you sincere greetings from my husband’s ancient village since I am enjoying my last few hours in this sacred land. My three month visa has expired one more time. The last stop for me in Taybeh was at the 4th century ruins of Saint George to light one last candle giving glory to God for all things.
Tourism will take a long time to pick up in rural areas but Bethlehem and Jerusalem are having good numbers for pilgrims. It might take a few more years for us to see the three buses that use to be parked nightly in front of the Taybeh Golden Hotel. All of our groups are small in numbers and only a few per month; very collapsed economy. We had many American friends visiting but mostly our guests are French and German groups.
Our Church of Saint George has a very active new committee headed up by my neighbor Samaan with many renovation projects and great ideas to support Fr. Daoud Khoury, our parish priest who is actually in need of a second priest; they have an Arabic Facebook page announcing all Sunday School activities and ladies fellowship. Since Samaan has returned to Palestine a few years ago, our church community has a whole new spirit and a new life in Christ! We celebrate all the special holy days more grandly. Many church communities have been invited to Taybeh to chant, pray & perform in concerts. This is beautiful fellowship since we are hardly one percent of the population as Christians.
This was the first year in 30 years, I have seen so many Scouts lead the procession to take the relics of Saint George from our church to the 4th century ruins for an outdoor prayer. We even had the Beit Sahour Scouts from the outskirts of Bethlehem. A magnificent liturgy and Saint George Feast Day celebration with almost 100 scouts in early May since we celebrate all the holy days on the Old Julian Calendar.
I had the greatest blessing this year to be at Jacob’s Well in Nablus at the Church of Saint Fotini on the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman.. Elder Ioustinios (Fr. Justin) from Cyprus is a living walking saint. He has survived over thirty-three attacks from both sides. A true miracle he has done all the mosaics and iconography in the entire magnificent church while under closure in the early 2000’s when Israel re-occupied the Palestinian Territories. We bought a very large mosaic of Saint George for the Taybeh Golden Hotel Lobby to support the work and witness of this holy monk. Saint George is the patron Saint of Taybeh and patron Saint of Palestine.
Saint George is the most beloved saint in the whole Middle East because during the Islamic invasion, churches that had the image of Saint George were not knocked down whereas if they had other Christian symbols like the cross, they were completely destroyed. All the Christians caught on and named many churches after Saint George. Therefore we think of Saint George as “house insurance,” a way to protect church buildings because Saint George is one of the figures mentioned in the Koran. “Khader” literally means the “Green One,” and it’s the Islamic nick name for Saint George.
Another great blessing was celebrating the Holy Ascension Day in Jerusalem to pray for my friends and loved ones at this sacred holy site where it’s the only day out of the whole year we have permission to have liturgy there. All four church communities (Orthodox, Armenian, Syrian & Coptic) had the liturgy in different languages at the same time surrounding the foot step of the Lord on the Stone at the Mount of Olives.
This land has such deep roots of Christian witness for over two thousand years. Let us pray Israel can have mercy and allow all faith groups to have freedom of worship in Jerusalem! However, the hardships of occupation will not end anytime soon. We now have new Israeli settlers confiscating the entrance of Taybeh. We keep our hope in Christ! Blessed Pentecost for all of our ancient church friends! Blessed Summer for all!
With the love of Christ,
From the land of Christ’s Holy Resurrection,
Maria
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