But for many other Christians, the curbs on worship have stripped Sunday’s Easter celebrations of substance.
“It’s very hard for all of us because it’s our holiday… It’s really hard to want to pray but to come here and find nothing. Everything is closed,” said Christina Toderas, 44, from Romania.
Like many other worshippers, she had resigned herself to watching the mass at the Holy Sepulchre on television.
“Never in my lifetime did I imagine a day when we would be forbidden from taking those steps” to the church, said a Palestinian woman from Jerusalem, Huda al-Imam.
“To have the Holy Sepulchre closed is to have the heart of our cultural and spiritual life stopped. Easter is not an event we attend, it is who we are,” she said.
Otmar Wassermann had also attempted to enter the Holy Sepulchre but failed.
“I must say I was somewhat frustrated,” he told, recalling how the feast is generally celebrated every year.
“The atmosphere is incredible,” Wassermann said, noting the music in particular. “People who go there, they have deep faith.”
‘We had enough of all this’
Despite his disappointment, the 65-year-old Catholic acknowledged that if the authorities said there was “danger, then there might be danger”.
Father Bernard Poggi, who was preparing to attend mass in another church near the holy site, also said he understood the security measures but added that “it seems to be more and more that there’s an unevenness in how the laws are put into practice”.
Inside the Holy Sepulchre, the celebrations were being held behind closed doors in front of a very small congregation, a far cry from the crowds that usually gather.
Around the Old City, where hymns and processions usually dominate at Easter, only whispers could be heard among the faithful moving discreetly through its passages.
“It is really sad. I just hope the war stops,” said Julio Makhalfeh, a 25-year-old restaurant manager.
“We had enough of all this. It is time to bring some normalcy back in our life.”