The cobbled streets of Jerusalem’s Old City have vibrated for centuries from the stamping of maces held by the festooned “guards,” or kavasses, of the Latin, Greek, and Armenian patriarchates as they make their way to and from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

On Palm Sunday, which marks the beginning of Holy Week leading up to Easter, the Armenian procession took place as usual this year. The kavasses, wearing fez hats and ceremonial scimitars — a throwback to their origin in Ottoman times — took the lead, with clerics in black hooded cassocks following behind.

But this year, the march had two modern additions — a police officer in front and another behind, and a group of Israeli volunteers wearing yellow- and lime-colored vests, with cellphones ready to document any untoward incidents along the way.

There was one.

Immediately after leaving the patriarchate, Yisca Harani, who set up the Religious Freedom Data Center three years ago to document, report, and submit complaints on racist attacks on Christian communities, spotted a religious Jewish youth spitting in the direction of a cleric.

She rushed to a group of four youths and recorded a conversation (in Hebrew) in which she asked why one of them spat.

“I’ve got phlegm,” he said. Another added, “Because they’re Christians.” She explained that spitting was against the law, after which one said, “Wait until we come and burn you all.”

Harani immediately called the police, and within minutes, officers had detained the youths at a station close to the nearby Tower of David.

A police spokesman later told The Times of Israel that the two were questioned and released, but the incident was under “active investigation.”

The Armenian procession continued without further reported incident into the cavernous interior of the........

© The Times of Israel