Geography of religion

The Israeli police on Friday arrested two teenagers who they said vandalized over two dozen Christian graves in a historic Jerusalem cemetery earlier this week.

Israel's national security minister's "provocative action" against Al-Aqsa Mosque is "unacceptable," Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told his Israeli counterpart in a telephone call, the Foreign Ministry said on Jan. 4.

Graffiti with the name of a 15th-century Swiss knight has been discovered in Jerusalem, carved into the walls of a building where pilgrims stayed, the Israel Antiquities Authority said on Oct. 20.

The knight Adrian von Bubenberg is believed to have visited the holy city in 1466, when researchers say he may have marked his name alongside his family emblem on a stone ceiling.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited the Jerusalem Patriarchate and the Church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem on Tuesday. "The Greek state will always stand by the Jerusalem Patriarchate and the great mission it is undertaking in this difficult and, at the same time, exciting city and region," Mitsotakis told journalists.

The Holy Light will remain in Athens and will not be distributed to churches this time.

The Holy Light, which arrives on the eve of Easter every year from Jerusalem, having been lit miraculously, according to Christian lore, at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

The administration of the Mount Athos monastic community in northern Greece decided on Wednesday to continue prohibiting the admission of pilgrims and other visitors until April 20 as part of the measures against the coronavirus epidemic.

The only people excluded from the measure are employees and other "necessary professionals" the administration said.

The Israeli embassy in Belgrade said it was "happy" to hear that Serbia plans to open a diplomatic representative office in Jerusalem, which Israel claims as its capital.

The armed wing of Gaza-based resistance faction Islamic Jihad called on Palestinians on Feb. 7 to attack Israeli military checkpoints.

"We call for comprehensive and direct conflict as long as the opportunities are available and to embark on the path of fighting and freedom," Abu Hamza, the spokesperson of the al-Quds Brigades, said on Twitter.

A prophet who defies a resurgent Islamic State in Syria. A shooting on Jerusalem's sacred Temple Mount. And -- just possibly -- the coming of the Messiah.

Netflix could scarcely have picked a more controversial plot for its latest thriller, about a mysterious religious leader who emerges in the Middle East and is pursued across the globe by the CIA.

PSD's (Social Democratic Party) presidential candidate Viorica Dancila stated on Tuesday that she still thinks moving the Romanian Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would be the right thing to do, but she would ask for the opinion of the relevant institutions before making this decision, if she became President.