Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu restored “full and immediate access” for the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre on Monday, one day after Israeli police barred Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa from celebrating Palm Sunday Mass at Christianity’s holiest site, drawing condemnation from European leaders and the papacy.
Pizzaballa and Father Francesco Ielpo, Custos of the Holy Land and the church’s official guardian, were turned away at the entrance on March 29 while walking to the site privately and without a ceremonial procession. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem called the incident “a grave precedent” and said it marked “the first time in centuries” church leaders had been prevented from celebrating Palm Sunday Mass there.
The police’s uniform-closure argument fractured on the same day. Franciscan friars and worshippers entered another Old City shrine a short walk from the Holy Sepulchre, and Muslim Waqf preachers had accessed Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan and Eid al-Fitr under the same wartime rules.
Farid Jubran, a spokesperson for the Patriarchate, said police had been informed the Mass would be held privately and behind closed doors. “But still despite this communication they insisted on acting this way,” he said.
Police said all Old City holy sites had been closed since Operation Roaring Lion, the joint U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran that began February 28, citing the area’s narrow streets and the inability of emergency vehicles to access the site in a mass-casualty event.
“Over the past several days, Iran has repeatedly targeted the holy sites of all three monotheistic religions in Jerusalem with ballistic missiles,” Netanyahu wrote on X. “In one strike, missile fragments crashed meters from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.”
I have instructed the relevant authorities that Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch, be granted full and immediate access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
Over the past several days, Iran has repeatedly targeted the holy sites of all three…
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) March 29, 2026
By Monday, police said they had reached a “mutual framework” with the Patriarchate to allow Easter ceremonies to proceed. The Holy Fire, the lighting of a ceremonial flame at the church on the Saturday before Orthodox Easter, would be held in a “symbolic, limited format,” police said.
“War will not erase the resurrection. Grief will not extinguish hope,” Pizzaballa said at a Palm Sunday service he held at the Church of All Nations on the Mount of Olives after being turned away.
Pope Leo XIV, speaking at the Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square in Rome on Sunday, said God “rejects the prayers of those who wage war” and paid tribute to “the Christians of the Middle East, who suffer the consequences of a terrible conflict and in many cases cannot fully live the rites of these holy days.”
U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee called the initial decision “difficult to understand or justify.” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said it “constitutes an offence not only to believers but for every community that recognises religious freedom,” and Italy summoned Israel’s ambassador in Rome. European Commission Vice President Kaja Kallas called it “a violation of religious freedom.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog reaffirmed “Israel’s unwavering commitment to freedom of religion for all faiths and to upholding the status quo at the holy sites of Jerusalem,” the Latin Patriarchate said, crediting his intervention in resolving the matter.
