By Pol Allingham, PA – Published 25th Dec 2025
The Archbishop of York is expected to say that he was “intimidated” by Israeli militias during a visit to the Holy Land this year.
The Most Reverend Stephen Cottrell will say he was stopped at checkpoints and that militias told him he could not visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank.
During his Christmas Day sermon at York Minster, he will say: “We have become, I can think of no other way of putting it, fearful of each other, and especially of strangers.
“We cannot see ourselves in them. And we, therefore, spurn a common humanity.”
He will describe how YMCA charity representatives in Bethlehem, who work with “persecuted Palestinian communities” in the West Bank, gave him an olive wood nativity scene carving.
The piece showed a “large grey wall” blocking the three kings from getting to the stable to see Mary, Joseph and Jesus.
The Church of England archbishop is expected to add: “It was sobering to see this wall for real on my visit to the Holy Land.
“It was sobering to see this wall for real on my visit to the Holy Land, and we were stopped at various checkpoints and intimidated by local Israeli militias who told us that we couldn’t visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank.
“But this Christmas morning, as well as thinking about the walls that divide and separate the Holy Land, I’m also thinking of all the walls and barriers we erect across the whole of the world and, perhaps, most alarming of all, the ones we build around ourselves and construct in our hearts, and of how our fearful shielding of ourselves from strangers.
“The strangers we encounter in the homeless on our streets, refugees seeking asylum, young people robbed of opportunity and growing up without hope for the future, means that we are in danger of even failing to welcome Christ when he comes.”
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 