The Diocesan Council formally approved a three-year companion relationship between this diocese and the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem at its Jan. 12 meeting.

The unanimous vote came in the wake of a fall pilgrimage to the Jerusalem diocese, whose 27 parishes and 35 hospitals and schools serve the Christian, Muslim and Jewish population of Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

During the Oct. 22-Nov. 4 tour, led by Bishop John Bryson Chane and the Rev. Canon John Peterson, 31 pilgrims from this diocese “engaged in a very emotional and very wonderful signing of a partnership agreement in a cathedral that was packed to the gills,” Chane said. Hymns were sung in English and Arabic, St. Anne’s, Damascus parishioner Dana Grubb reported, “so enthusiastic that the singing drowned out the organ.”

In addition to time spent at St. George’s Cathedral, Jerusalem – the seat of the diocese – the group visited places of pilgrimage from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, the site of Christ’s birth, to Gethsemane, the Via Dolorosa and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the site of his crucifixion and resurrection.

They traveled to Capernaum and the Mount of the Beatitudes in Galilee, where Jesus delivered his Sermon on the Mount and Nazareth, where he grew up. They visited the site of his baptism in Jordan, and renewed their baptismal vows on the banks of the Jordan River. And they visited holy places like Jacob’s Well, where Jesus rested and asked the Samaritan woman to draw water for him, and Mount Nebo in Jordan, from which Moses looked out and saw the promised land in the distance but was not permitted to cross over to it.

In addition to these holy places, and others, the pilgrims visited numerous Episcopal parishes and institutions, among them St. Luke’s Hospital in Nablus and the Penman Clinic in Zebabdeh in the West Bank, and the Jofeh Rehabilitation Center and the Holy Land Institute for the Deaf in Jordan. They spoke with doctors, teachers and pupils and learned about the current political situation from both Israeli and Palestinian speakers.

The focus of the new partnership will be on forging church-to-church connections and relationships, responding to challenges facing the diocese’s schools and hospitals, and advocacy for reconciliation, economic and social justice, interfaith work and women’s issues in both dioceses, Chane said.

At its January meeting the Diocesan Council appointed a large Companion Diocese Committee, which includes a number of people who took part in the fall pilgrimage as members.

“It’s a large group and we know that,” governance officer Ann Talty said. “It’s just to kick it off.” The panel will select its own chairperson and will report back to the council in six months with a plan for developing and implementing the partnership’s goals, she said.

Chane noted that those who made the fall pilgrimage with him had collectively pledged $10,000 to the partnership effort, and that an additional gift of stock, worth approximately $15,000, had since been given for that purpose.

To make a donation to support the partnership, send a check payable to the Episcopal Diocese of Washington with “Jerusalem partnership seed money” in the memo line Attn. Tracy Dieter at Episcopal Church House, Mount St. Alban, Washington, D.C., 20016.

Lucy Chumbley is the editor of Washington Window, the newspaper of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington.