Mergând dincolo de un pelerinaj: Sărbătoarea Sfântului Gheorghe din Lod – Israel
Going Beyond a Pilgrimage: The Feast of St. George in Lod-Israel

Summary/Abstract: Religion and spirituality are common motivations for travels, with many major tourist destinations developing largely due to their connections with people, places, and sacred events. Pilgrimages are one of the most important forms of domestic tourism in Israel and the Palestinian territories. On November 16 of each year, the church of St. George in Lod is filled with hundreds of worshippers, who arrive for the Feast of St. George / Khidr, on the day commemorating the translating of his relics to the church at the heart of Lod. Pilgrims travel from Nazareth and Bethlehem, or from Jordan to receive the blessing of the saint, who is the patron saint of all of Palestine. They light candles together in what is one of the last truly shared feasts between Muslims and Christians in the region. This multilateral holiday expressing the pluralism of the society, its willingness to develop inter-faith relations and to embrace multiculturalism, is a true heterogeneous manifestation, which can certainly be called a “post-modern” pilgrimage. Guided by these circumstances, the author’s main objective in this research is to present an in-depth analysis of the current state of St. George of Lod’s cult and the pilgrimage dedicated to his shrine. In this paper, he provides conceptual information about the landscape of the city of Lod in Israel and the church of St. George, and he describes the rituals and interreligious coexistence (Christians, Muslims and, more recently, secular Jewish tourists) from around the sanctuary. He also outlines the main features as well as the drastic change of the pilgrimage in the modern period, taking into account the hagiography and veneration of St. George in Israel / Palestine, migration, tourism, and the celebration of the pilgrimage itself, which play essential roles in understanding this feast day of Saint George.

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