Holy Fire

The ceremony

The rite is led by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, who enters the small chapel known as the aedicule, built over the spot where some believe the tomb of Jesus lay. An Armenian Apostolic bishop goes in with him, and Coptic and Syriac clergy stand at fixed places outside. A prayer is said, and then a flame is kindled within. The Patriarch comes out holding two burning candles. Crowds fill the church and the streets around it, and people light their own candles from his. The fire is said to touch other lamps in the building by itself.

Early records

Christians in Jerusalem have long told of a light appearing at the tomb at Easter. Eusebius, a church historian from Caesarea, wrote that in the year 162 the bishop Narcissus told the wardens to fill lamps with water when no oil was left, and they burned as if full of oil. Gregory of Nyssa mentioned a strange light at the tomb in a homily. Around 385 a Spanish noblewoman, Egeria, described a ceremony where light came out of the little chapel enclosing the tomb and the whole church filled with it. A pilgrim called Bernard the Wise set the liturgy down in writing in 867, and scholars think it took shape in the eighth century.

Under Muslim rule

After the Muslim conquest, the rite became part of how the Christians of Palestine understood themselves, at a time when the region was cut off from Constantinople. Ibn al-Qass, a Muslim writer who died in 946, left one of the earliest full accounts. He set apart a white light, nur, which he said came from the locked tomb and did not burn, and the ordinary fire, nar, that came after. That flame lit a candle carried by the Sultan and then the lamps of a mosque. If the light appeared while people prayed, he wrote, it meant a fertile year; if it came only later, drought.

Later centuries

When the Crusaders held Jerusalem under Baldwin I, Latin clergy took charge of the church, and by one account the Greeks were restored after the fire failed to come for them in 1101. Under Ottoman rule a crowd in the packed, smoky church panicked in 1834; four hundred people died by the reckoning of the English traveller Robert Curzon, and the governor's guards made matters worse. In 2002 a quarrel over which bishop should come out with the fire first turned into a scuffle between the Greek and Armenian sides, and police went in to stop it.

Doubt and dispute

Not everyone accepts the miracle. Pope Gregory IX called it a fraud in 1238 and barred the Franciscans from taking part. The Ayyubid ruler Al-Muazzam Turanshah is said to have decided it was trickery but let the monks carry on in return for money. The Ottoman writer Evliya Çelebi claimed a hidden monk let naphtha drip down a chain. Edward Gibbon mocked the rite, the Greek scholar Adamantios Korais attacked it as a swindle, and in 2005 Michael Kalopoulos showed on Greek television that candles treated with white phosphorus can catch alight on their own.

How Holy Fire is kept

On the morning of Great Saturday the church fills with pilgrims and local Christians, and clergy of several churches take their places. The Greek Orthodox Patriarch enters the aedicule with an Armenian bishop; Coptic and Syriac representatives wait outside. He prays, and the flame is kindled inside. He steps out with two lit candles and passes the fire to those near him. It spreads through the crowd and is carried to other Orthodox churches, by plane to Greece and by other means to Russia, Georgia, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and beyond. Police keep order.

When and where

The Holy Fire is kept once a year, on Great Saturday, the Saturday before Orthodox Easter. The date follows the Orthodox reckoning of Pascha, so it moves from year to year and can fall in different spring weeks. The ceremony is held during the day.

The ceremony belongs to Jerusalem, where the Church of the Holy Sepulchre stands inside the walled Old City. It draws pilgrims from many countries, and it is the centre of the Orthodox Easter season there. From Jerusalem the flame is sent to Orthodox churches elsewhere, among them those in Greece, Russia, Georgia, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Lebanon, Egypt and Ukraine, where church and state leaders often receive it.

What Holy Fire means

For Orthodox believers the fire is the light of the risen Christ, given again each year. They say it brings comfort, joy and peace, and that it does not burn the people it touches. Its arrival is read as a sign of God's presence at the tomb. For the churches that share the building, taking part also marks their place in the Christian life of the city.

Days Holy Fire is marked

Questions people ask about Holy Fire

See also

PassoverA Jewish spring festival celebrating freedom from slavery with ritual mealsSukkotA seven-day autumn Jewish festival of temporary booths, harvest prayers and hospitalityStations of the CrossA Christian prayer journey following fourteen moments of the Passion of JesusSigdAn Ethiopian Jewish holiday of covenant renewal, fasting, and longing for Zion

Good reading and sources

• Holy Fire on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.