Religion: Peace in Nazareth

The Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth is one of the great rallying places of the Christian world, but for the last 24 years its local parishioners, the Christian Arabs of Nazareth, have been badly divided. In 1928, one of the Franciscan monks at the Annunciation was charged with building a new wing to the adjoining monastery. In a slight dispute, he fired one of the stonecutters. Angered, the 29 other stonecutters quit. When the monks still refused to reconsider, 600 other Nazarenes joined in protest. They refused to set foot in their church again, until their stonecutter was reinstated.

The dissident families rented a nearby house and made a small church of their own, where visiting priests officiated for them. They were known locally as za’ldnin —”the angry ones.” Although they remained faithful to Roman Catholic doctrine, their leaders consistently refused to make peace with the parish church.

Recently, however, the anger of the angry has been waning, and they have been trickling back to the Church of the Annunciation. Late this fall, the last 30 families made their submission. This Christmas, for the first time since 1928, the bells of the Church of the Annunciation called a united parish to prayer.