Christians mark Easter at Jerusalem’s Holy Sepulchre

Hundreds of visitors filed into Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre — believed to be the site of Jesus’s resurrection — for Easter celebrations on Sunday.

Western Christians marked Easter on Sunday, while Eastern Orthodox Christians do so on April 8.

The Eastern Orthodox marked Palm Sunday on April 1 and also held mass at the church in Jerusalem’s Old City, with worshippers holding palm fronds as is tradition.

Some worshippers prostrated over a stone — where they believe Jesus’s body was anointed before his burial — near the towering wooden doors at the entrance to the church.

The church is built at the site where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected. A recently renovated ornate shrine within the church surrounds the cave where Jesus is believed to have been buried.

Catholic Archbishop Pierbattista Pizzaballa held mass at the church on Sunday morning near the shrine over the cave, entering dressed in the traditional purple Easter robe.

He made reference to the Middle East’s numerous conflicts in his homily, saying “our times are marked by death.”

“Easter is the ability to come back and look at our history in the light of the promise of life that takes place today,” he said.