Eggs in hand-painted porcelain vases donated by the Muslim authorities, closer contacts with the Jewish community and with the other Christian confessions: these, according to Father Rubén Tierrablanca, who heads the international Franciscan Fraternity in Istanbul, are “the signs that accompanied this Easter 2006, celebrated simultaneously with Jews, a week before the Orthodox Easter on 23 April”. It was an Easter “distinguished by a climate of collaboration and friendship on the level of ecumenical and interfaith relations”, beginning with relations with the civil authorities. “Our mayor – Father Tierrablanca reported to Fides – sent a little vase of Chinese porcelain containing eggs to all the Christian communities (Catholic, Orthodox, Armenian, Syriac and Protestant) as gifts to all the faithful who attend our churches and to wish us Happy Easter. He is Moslem in religion, but has great esteem for Christianity and for the Christians of his territory”. The celebration of Easter also helped to bring the Catholic and Jewish communities closer together: “Since Jews and Christians celebrated Passover/Pasch at the same time this year, the Chief Rabbi of Istanbul, Izak Haleva, invited the various religious representatives to his residence on Sunday afternoon to wish us Happy Easter. To our elder brothers we expressed the wish ‘Pesah Same’ach!'”. The fruits of this Easter were also “good” at the ecumenical level: “On Easter Monday, Mesrob II, the Patriarch of the Apostolic Armenian Church invited all the other Christian representatives to his residence. “This experience of new life – he concluded – contrasts with the propensity of the Turkish mass media to highlight our difficulties or to ridicule Christian symbols, saying, for example, that for Christian children Easter means throwing eggs at each other. We are trying to testify that Easter is far more than that”.
