JERUSALEM: MEMBERS OF "RECONCILIATION WALK" ARRIVE IN JERUSALEM TO APOLOGISE FOR MASSACRE COMMITTED BY THE CRUSADERS 900 YEARS AGO

Record ID: 636629

  • Title: JERUSALEM: MEMBERS OF "RECONCILIATION WALK" ARRIVE IN JERUSALEM TO APOLOGISE FOR MASSACRE COMMITTED BY THE CRUSADERS 900 YEARS AGO
  • Date: 12th July 1999
  • Summary: JERUSALEM (JULY 12, 1999) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. VARIOUS OF THE 'RECONCILIATION WALK' MEMBERS WALKING IN JERUSALEM STREETS (6 SHOTS) 0.25 2. MV ULTRA ORTHODOX MAN LOOKING AT THE GROUP 0.28 3. VARIOUS GROUP MEMBERS ARRIVING AT DAMASCUS GATE IN THE OLD CITY (4 SHOTS) 0.46 4. SV GROUP MEMBERS PRAYING 0.58 5. VARIOUS OF PRAYER (3 SHOTS) 1.19 6. WIDE OF THE SCENE 1.23 7. SV (SOUNDBITE) (English) LYNN GREEN, A MALE ORGANISER FOR THE 'RECONCILIATION WALK', SAYING: "We have come here on the same day, nine hundred year later, and we are here just to say that all that has been done in the name of Jesus was contrary to his will, contrary to his example, and we are here to say we are sorry for misrepresenting him the way our forefathers did" 1.38 VIA DOLOROSA, OLD CITY, JERUSALEM (JULY 12, 1999) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 8. VARIOUS GROUP WALKING IN THE VIA DOLOROSA 1.45 9. SV/CU GROUP MEMBER GIVING A PALESTINIAN THE ARABIC VERSION OF THE APOLOGY (2 SHOTS) 1.59 10. SV PALESTINIAN TALKING TO GROUP MEMBER 2.07 11. SV GROUP MEMBER TALKING TO A PALESTINIAN SHOPKEEPER 2.24 12. SCU (SOUNDBITE) (English) PALESTINIAN SHOPKEEPER SAYING: "They are doing something very good, not even good, something very good, and we hope that they do that for other people also". 2.38 13. TRACK/SV GROUP MEMBERS SPEAKING TO PALESTINIANS (2 SHOTS) 2.53 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 27th July 1999 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: JERUSALEM
  • City:
  • Country: Israel
  • Reuters ID: LVA12YZK3LE2FHESS823FGUUC552
  • Story Text: Nine hundred years after the Crusaders conquered
    Jerusalem hoping to liberate the Holy Land from the Moslems
    scores of Christians have arrived in Jerusalem to apologise
    for the bloody slaughter committed by their forefathers.

    At the end of a three-year journey from Cologne, Germany,
    members of the 'reconciliation walk' arrived in Jerusalem
    to apologise for the masscre committed by the Crusaders nine
    hundred years ago.

    On July 15, 1099, tens of thousands of Crusader knights and
    foot-soldiers breached the walls of Jerusalem and slaughtered
    its Moslem and Jewish inhabitants.

    It was a slight diversion from their main goal which was to
    liberate the Christian holy sites from Moslem rule and exert
    the supremacy of the Latin papacy over the eastern church
    based in Constantinople.

    In the same summer heat, nine hundred years later,
    Christians are now apologising to Israeli and Palestinian
    residents as they walk through the streets of Jerusalem.

    "We have come here on the same day, nine hundred years
    later, and we are here just to say that all that has been done
    in the name of Jesus was contrary to his will" said Lynn
    Green, the group's organiser.

    About 350 Christians started from Galilee in the north,
    travelling through the West Bank town of Nablus and arrived in
    Jerusalem on Monday.

    Meeting Palestinian shopkeepers at the Via Dolorosa in
    Jerusalem's Old City, the group asked for forgiveness for the
    violence of 11th-13th century military expeditions mobilised
    by Western Christendom to try to capture holy places under Moslem
    control.

    The Christian group, which said it aims at reconciliation
    with Jews and Orthodox Christians as well as Moslems, said it
    offered love and brotherhood in contrast to Crusaders it said
    "were motivated by hatred and prejudice."
    The eight major Crusades to the Holy Land that began in 1095
    ultimately failed to hold Christian sites, and by 1291, Acre,
    the last Crusader foothold in Moslem-rule Palestine, was lost.


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