From the streets of Caracas to a rain-soaked Saint Peter’s Square, Christians around the world celebrated Easter Sunday amid messages of renewal, peace and hope.

At the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI called for “solutions that will safeguard peace and the common good” in Tibet, the Middle East and Africa during his traditional Easter message. Tens of thousands of pilgrims turned out to hear the “Urbi et Orbi” (to the city and the world) message, sheltering from the pelting rain under a sea of umbrellas in the flower-bedecked Saint Peter’s Square. 

In Britain, the leader of the world’s Anglican communion, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, warned that “comforts and luxuries” would eventually run out, and that civilisation in its current form would collapse. 

As the faithful marked the resurrection of Jesus Christ after his crucifixion on Good Friday, worshippers found ways to celebrate this holiest date in the Christian calendar in even the most difficult circumstances.

In Jerusalem, Christian pilgrims from around the world flocked to celebrate Easter in Jerusalem’s Old City where many believe Jesus to have been resurrected after his crucifixion.

In Venezuela, Holy Week celebrations conclude with a political twist each year with the “Burning of Judas,” in which unpopular politicians are hung and burned in effigy. This year Colombian President Alvaro Uribe was torched in the central Caracas neighorhood of San Agustin. Colombia and Venezuela almost went to war in early March, and Uribe and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have long had a testy relationship. 

In China, the Tibetan Catholic Church in Cizhong, a Christian enclave on the threshold of the Himalayas, saw its Easter services curbed after anti-Chinese riots in Lhasa caused the region’s deadliest tensions in two decades. As a result, the tiny community of less than 1,000 souls, snuggled amid picturesque mountains in an overwhelmingly Buddhist area, has been affected by the recent unrest where it matters the most for them: religion.

In Australia, Anglican Archbishop Phillip Aspinall, focused on the environment. In Seoul, some 20,000 Christians held a non-denominational Easter service in front of city hall, raising money for victims of an oil spill last December. Throughout Germany, thousands of pacifists took part in some 90 Easter weekend demonstrations that included a bicycle ride demanding German troops pull out of Afghanistan. In Afghanistan itself, Canadian soldiers deployed through NATO received chocolate Easter eggs, although no chaplain was available to hold a mass at their base camp.

In Russia, Catholics, a minority in the mainly Orthodox Christian country, celebrated Easter at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Moscow. The Eastern Orthodox Church, which still uses the Julian calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar, holds its Easter on April 27. Orthodox Easter in Greece and Cyprus will be celebrated on this date next April.

Christian pilgrims, undeterred by the recent violence in Israel and the Gaza Strip, sang and prayed on Easter Sunday at the church believed to be built on the site where Jesus rose from the dead.

Polish men in feathered fur hats, Indian women in saris and Palestinian clergy in white and gold robes found shelter from Jerusalem’s sweltering heat in the cavernous Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City.

The outgoing Roman Catholic leader in the Holy Land, Patriarch Michel Sabbah, criticized both Israelis and Palestinians responsible for the recent bloodshed, including Israeli military operations in Gaza, rocket fire from Palestinian militants and a deadly shooting attack on a Jewish religious seminary.

“Despite this, there are hundreds of thousands in both the Palestinian and Israeli societies who send an outcry: peace, peace,” Sabbah, a Palestinian, said in a sermon. “We need leaders who are ready to offer their lives for the sake of peace, not leaders who issue orders to kill and assassinate and send others to kill or to get killed.” Sabbah, and dozens of clergymen in gold-embroidered capes circled the candlelit rotunda where believers say Jesus was buried and then rose from the dead. Stern-faced ushers led the procession, striking the ground with large silver-topped staffs and forcing back the throngs of pilgrims.

Israeli security had deployed thousands of officers nationwide to secure events connected with Easter and the Jewish festival of Purim. Security was also high because of Israeli concerns of a possible revenge attack for the assassination of a Hezbollah commander last month in Syria. Israel denied involvement, but Hezbollah has blamed the Jewish state and threatened to avenge his death with an attack on Israeli targets.

Protestants, who venerate a spot outside the Old City known as the Garden Tomb as the site of Jesus’ burial, gathered there early Sunday to sing songs accompanied by a rock band. Some raised their hands and swayed to the music.

  Christians hold the first mass at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic church in Doha last Saturday. Qatar’s first Christian church has no cross, no bell and no steeple. And when thousands of worshippers gather at Our Lady of the Rosary to mark Easter, they pray no one will notice.

“The idea is to be discreet because we don’t want to inflame any sensitivities. There isn’t even a signboard outside the church. No signs at all,” said Rev. Tom Veneracion.

For Qatar’s fledgling Roman Catholic community, the sprawling $15-million, dome-shaped building, a 15-minute drive into barren desert is a victory, built with the blessing of the current Emir. But critics in this devoutly Muslim country call it a desecration, with a militant website last week threatening retaliation against the congregation. One former politician has called for a national referendum to decide its fate.

Lahdan bin Issa al-Muhanada, a popular columnist in Doha’s Al-Arab newspaper, argues: “The cross should not be raised in the sky of Qatar, nor should bells toll in Doha.” Abdul Hamid al-Ansari, the former dean of the Islamic law school at Qatar University, is among the church’s most staunch defenders, writing that having “places of worship for various religions is a fundamental human right guaranteed by Islam.”

Sitting in the offices of the modest portable that has doubled as his makeshift chapel for the past six years, Father Veneracion said he is bewildered by the dispute. “It is confusing to us. We tried to be discreet and I think there’s an atmosphere generally in the Gulf that’s fairly anti-Christian, but that’s mainly to do with what’s happening in Iraq and Afghanistan. It has nothing to do with us at all,” said the priest, a slight, soft-spoken Filipino who seemed genuinely caught off guard by the controversy.

In Doha, demands for a Catholic church have intensified as waves of migrant workers from Christian parts of South Asia and the Philippines arrived in the Persian Gulf, answering the call for cheap labour to fuel the booming economies. But their Christian faith has sometimes clashed with the native Qatari population, which practises Wahhabism, a strict interpretation of Islam. In Qatar, natives account for only 200,000 of its 900,000 population.

A Catholic priest had operated in Qatar without official approval since the 1960s and the Vatican estimates there are about 100,000 practising Catholics in Qatar, who attended underground services until seven years ago, when Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Thani, the state’s current ruler, granted permission to five denominations to open churches.

The Sheik, who seized control from his father in a 1995 palace coup, is a staunch U.S. ally, and the move is part of a broader push to promote Qatar as an open and tolerant society to attract tourism and investment. Saudi Arabia is now the only Gulf state that still bans churches.

The grounds of the new church boast a catechism building and conference centre. A wedding party has already booked a ceremony and reception this May. But it remains unclear whether average Qataris will accept the church, or whether a backlash will force it to close. Qatar’s Catholic faithful, however, are resolute.

Vatican envoy Cardinal Ivan Dias led the five-hour-long inaugural mass on Saturday, where congregants wept when a relic of St. Padre Pio da Pietrelcina was dedicated. “We have been waiting for this for such a long time and we are feeling very hopeful because finally we will have a proper place of worship,” said Lourdes Carvallo, a 28-year-old homemaker of Goan ancestry who was born in Qatar and grew up attending underground mass in neighbours’ homes every Sunday. “We are tired of pretending we don’t exist,” she said.

Psalms and incense filled the air of the Holy City of Jerusalem on what is known as Good Friday, as thousands of Christian pilgrims from around the world prayed along the traditional route Jesus took to his crucifixion.

The faithful, several of them bearing large wooden crosses, walked in procession along the cobblestoned streets of Jerusalem’s Old City, following the Via Dolorosa, or Way of Suffering, where Jesus is said to have carried the cross on which he was later crucified by the Romans.

As the pilgrims intoned their psalms, their voices mingled across the stone facades of the Old City with the Muslim call to Friday prayers broadcast from numerous minarets. Incense filled the Holy City’s narrow streets, where the Good Friday worshippers crossed paths with Muslim faithful, prayer rugs slung over their shoulders. The procession set off under bright sunshine outside the Monastery of Flagellation, where Jesus was beaten, mocked and crowned with thorns. It concluded at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is built over the sites where many Christians believe Christ was both crucified and buried.

The route trodden by the pilgrims is based on a devotional walk first laid out by the Roman Catholic Church’s Franciscan order in the 14th century. The Christian Gospels teach that on the third day after he was crucified, Jesus rose from the dead. That event is commemorated by Easter, the most important day of the church year to most Christians.

Catholics and other Christians in the west celebrate Easter on a different date each year than do Orthodox Christians. This year’s March 23 date in the West is one of the earliest days in the calendar that the feast is celebrated. Orthodox Easter will be on April 27.

As the faithful arrived at the Holy Sepulcher church, representatives from two Muslim families that have kept keys to it since the 13th century opened its doors to them. Michel Sabbah, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, arrived in the church a little before the procession, to celebrate his last Good Friday mass as leader of Roman Catholics in the Holy Land, after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75 this week.

Police deployed reinforcements to prevent any incidents in the Old City, which Israel annexed along with the rest of Arab east Jerusalem after capturing it in the 1967 Middle East war. Farid Dueibess, an Arab Christian who lives in the Old City, said several of his relatives were unable to travel to Jerusalem for the procession because Israeli authorities sealed off the occupied West Bank during the Jewish holiday of Purim that started at sundown on Thursday.

Old City merchants did a thriving business selling souvenirs and religious trinkets, a welcome respite after violence in the region hurt tourism in recent years.

  Christian choir boys take part in the Palm Sunday procession as they walk on the Mount of Olives on 16 March 2008 retracing the route taken by Jesus Christ as he entered the city of Jerusalem at the beginning of Holy Week, leading up to His crucifixion. Behind is the walled Old City of Jerusalem with its distinctive golden Dome of the Rock.

  Christian pilgrims lift their hands in song as they walk with palm branches on the Mount of Olives on Palm Sunday, 16 March 2008, retracing the route taken by Jesus Christ to enter Jerusalem at the beginning of Holy Week, leading up to His crucifixion. Behind is the walled Old City of Jerusalem with its distinctive golden Dome of the Rock. Behind the done is the Churh of the Holy Sepulchre.

  A pilgrim, carries a large wooden cross on the Mount of Olives as he joins the Palm Sunday procession on 16 March 2006 and retraces the route taken by Jesus Christ into the city of Jerusalem as he began His Holy Week leading up to His crucifixion. A Palestinian boy with a Palm branch is at right. 

  Christian pilgrims carry palm branches during the Palm Sunday procession from Mt. Olives into Jerusalem’s old city, on 16 March 2008.

The sound of church bells wafted through Jerusalem’s Old City, marking Palm Sunday and the beginning of Easter Holy Week. Pilgrims from around the world carried olive and palm branches into the ancient Church of the Holy Sepulcher, believed to be the place of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.

Priests and monks in festive red and white robes celebrated Palm Sunday mass in a fragrant cloud of incense. Palm Sunday marks Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, when according to the Bible, people threw palm branches on the road to welcome Him. 

It was a good turnout of pilgrims, despite recent violence that includes fighting in the Gaza Strip, and a Palestinian attack on a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem 10 days ago that killed eight young Israeli students. 

On Good Friday, pilgrims will visit the Via Dolorosa, following Jesus’ path to the 14 Stations of the Cross. Holy Week culminates on Easter Sunday when Christians celebrate the resurrection.

Saudi Arabia’s religious police have banned red roses ahead of Valentine’s Day, forcing couples in the conservative Muslim nation to think of new ways to show their love.

The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has ordered florists and gift shop owners in the capital Riyadh to remove any items coloured scarlet, which is widely seen as symbolizing love, newspapers said.

“They visited us last night,” the Saudi Gazette quoted an unidentified florist as saying.

It is not unusual for the Saudi vice squad to clamp down ahead of Valentine’s Day, which it sees as encouraging relations between men and women outside of wedlock, the newspaper said.

Saudi Arabia imposes an austere form of Sunni Islam which prevents unrelated men and women from mixing, bans women from driving and demands that women wear a headscarf and a cloak.