Parliament and church leaders on pilgrimage to Jerusalem

Exterior of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which the Speaker of PMR's Parliament visited and prayed in

TIRASPOL (Tiraspol Times) - Showing the Christian faith of their small and unrecognized country, presiding officers of Parliament of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, the Parliamentary news service reports.

Between 15 October 2007 and 23 October 2007, leading politicians and religious figures from Pridnestrovie made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The group from Pridnestrovie was headed by Bishop Justinian of the Tiraspol-Dubossary Diocese and included Parliament’s presiding officers, including Speaker Yevgeny Shevchuk, an Orthodox Christian.

There were meetings with His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilus of the Holy City of Jerusalem and Head of the Slavonic Ecclesiastical Mission, Archimandrite Tikhon. Pridnestrovie's representatives prayed for peace at The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, burial place of Jesus Christ. They desire a safe and bloodless solution to their country's wish for independence and an end to the conflict which neighboring Moldova maintains with its continued claim over Pridnestrovie's territory.

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, called Church of the Resurrection (Anastasis) by Eastern Christians, is a Christian church now within the walled Old City of Jerusalem.

The ground the church rests on is venerated as Golgotha, the Hill of Calvary where Jesus Christ was crucified. It also contains the place where Jesus was buried (the sepulchre). The church has been an important pilgrimage destination since the 4th century, and the portions of it which are administered by the Orthodox are in the care of the Church of Jerusalem.

Yevgeny Shevchuk, Speaker of Pridnestrovie's Parliament, in an audience with His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilus of the Holy City of Jerusalem.

Problems with international recognition

The walled area of Jerusalem, which constituted the entire city until the 1860s, is now called the Old City, and was added to the List of World Heritage Sites in danger in 1982.

The Old City has been traditionally divided into four quarters, the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters. Despite having an area of only 0.9 square kilometer (0.35 square mile), the Old City is home to several sites of worldwide religious importance: the Temple Mount and its Western Wall for Jews, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for Christians, and the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque for Muslims.

Modern Jerusalem is multi-ethnic, and home to both Jews, Christians and Arab. Jews and Christians live mostly in the West, while the Arab population resides in clusters in the North, East and South.

From left to right: Yevgeny Shevchuk, Bishop Justinian from Tiraspol (PMR), and Head of the Slavonic Ecclesiastical Mission Archimandrite Tikhon in Jerusalem.

Today, Jerusalem remains a bone of contention in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem (captured in the 1967 Six-Day War) has been particularly controversial, as Palestinians view this part of the city as the capital of the Palestinian state.

Neither Israel nor Palestine are fully recognized countries by the international community. Israel lacks recognition from a large number of states worldwide. Palestine itself is a largely unrecognized state, and - unlike Pridnestrovie - it is under occupation and does not yet meet the requirements for statehood under international law.

The status of a Jerusalem as Israel's capital has not been officially recognized by most of the international community, and nearly all countries maintain their embassies in Tel Aviv instead.

See also:
» Moldovan-born politician on conflict settlement: "Separating the two sides is best solution"
» In Pridnestrovie, five times more religions than Moldova