The Holy See has launched this year's Easter appeal for the support of Christians in the Holy Land, calling for support to preserve the "Christian origins" of the region.
The prefect of the Congregation for Eastern Churches, Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, called for the collaboration of pastors from the Church around the world, the Catholic News Agency reports.
"Let us, therefore, return in our hearts to the Upper Room in Jerusalem where the Teacher and Lord 'loved us to the end'; to that place where the Apostles with the Holy Mother of the Risen Crucified One experienced the first Pentecost," the prelate wrote in a letter.
He asks priests to "work tirelessly to guarantee a future to Christians in the place where 'the kindness and humanity' of Our God and Father first appeared."
Eastern Christians, he said, deserve the support of the whole Church in completing their "responsibility to preserve the 'Christian origins'" meaning both the people and places, "so that those origins may always be the reference of the Christian mission, the measure of the ecclesial future and its security", according to the news report.
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Vatican renews call for protection of Christianity's origins (Catholic News Agency)