Palestinians mark Orthodox Christmas amid boycott calls

PALATINE - 6 January 2018: Palestinians protesting church land sales to Israelis scuffled with Palestinian police in Bethlehem Saturday as they tried to block the arrival of the Holy Land's Greek Orthodox patriarch for Christmas celebrations.

Demonstrators scuffled with club-wielding Palestinian security forces and banged on the sides of police escort vehicles but patriarch Theophilos III passed safely in his black limousine to the Church of the Nativity for the traditional Orthodox Christmas eve observance.

"Today we stand here to prevent the entry of the traitor Theophilos," Salama Shaheen, an activist of the Arab Orthodox Youth movement, told AFP in Arabic.

"We do not want this man. This man must be brought to trial because he betrayed the homeland, betrayed the church and betrayed every human principle," he added.

Official Palestinian news agency WAFA said Theophilos joined heads of the Syrian and Coptic Orthodox churches in the ancient church, which Christians believe marks the birthplace of Jesus.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's office told AFP he would attend midnight mass celebrated by Theophilos at the church on Saturday and present him with a model of Jerusalem's Holy Sepulchre church as a Christmas gift.

Most Eastern Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas on January 7, while those in the West observe it on December 25 because of differences between the Julian and Gregorian calendars.

- Traditional parade -

The Bethlehem, Beit Sahour and Beit Jala municipalities in the Israeli-occupied West Bank had called for the boycott over the Greek Orthodox church allegedly allowing controversial sales of its property in mainly Palestinian east Jerusalem to groups aiding Jewish settlement there.

They had urged the public to stay away, but it was not immediately known if there was a significant drop in attendance compared to previous days or what effect driving rain in Bethlehem may have had.