Jordan Times
Sunday, January 11, 2004
Thousands attend Epiphany celebrations at Baptism Site
By Reem Halasa
AMMAN — Thousands of Christians gathered at the biblical site of Bethany on Friday to mark the feast of Epiphany and the Annual Day of Pilgrimage.
The ceremony began with a procession of the faithful to the main ceremonial site along the River Jordan.
The parade went down a cobblestone path led by clergy and archbishops, church choirs, and accompanied by the Armed Forces band.
“What was special about this year is that we had representatives from 10 out of 13 Christian churches in Jordan, and that is a big number,” Reverend Nabil Haddad of the Baptism Site Commission told The Jordan Times. “We also had guests from Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Galilee,” he added.
The celebrations began with a prayer service on a platform overlooking the river, performed by clergymen representing all the participating churches.
The congregation prayed for peace and security in the troubled Middle East, after which priests administered Holy Communion, a sacrament symbolising the spiritual reception of the body of Christ.
The ceremony proceeded with the service of the “Great Blessing of Water” — priests and archbishops carried a wooden cross to the bank of the Jordan River and submerged it in the water three times, representing St. John baptising Christ in the same spot.
The choir chanted hymns in Arabic and Greek, as people went down to the river side, some filling plastic bottles and cups with holy water.
On the way back, carrying olive branches, the priests sprinkled holy water on the crowds.
As she made her way back from the river, Mary, from the Greek Catholic Church of Zarqa, said it was “a great feeling to be here, blessed by the holy water in which Christ was also baptised.”
Others shared her feelings. Hind, who came with her friends from Marka, said “I feel that I have been baptised once again... I feel reborn.”
“It is an awesome feeling, isn't it?” said Razmeek, an Iraqi writer, as he looked across the river, “This is the first time I've been here, and I am glad that I didn't miss this chance and such a celebration,” he added.
Epiphany or Theophany, as some churches refer to it, is a commemoration of Christ's birth and his baptism in the River Jordan, Reverend Haddad told The Jordan Times earlier.
According to the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, Bethany Beyond the Jordan, or the Baptism Site, spreads over a three-kilometre stretch along the east bank of the Jordan River.
The site, where John the Baptist lived and preached and where Jesus Christ was baptised, includes excavated remains of plastered baptism pools, a system of water pipes and channels that used to carry water to and from the site, churches and caves.
In 2000, on his millennium pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Pope John Paul II visited the Baptism Site and held a mass attended by around 100,000 worshippers.