‘Biblical holiday catching more than ever before during Corona’
By: David Parsons, ICEJ VP & Senior Spokesman

The Corona pandemic may have prevented thousands of Christians from attending the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem’s annual Feast of Tabernacles celebration here in Israel this week, but the ICEJ’s innovative online Global Feast has spawned hundreds of Sukkot gatherings and watch parties in dozens of countries worldwide, drawing more Christians than ever before into marking this joyous biblical holiday together.

The ICEJ’s virtual Feast this week features seven daily programs broadcast to large audiences on GOD TV, Daystar, Vision Norway and several other major Christian television networks worldwide. Thousands of Christians from over 115 nations also are accessing the Feast online, along with hundreds of churches around the globe who are hosting Sukkot celebrations and watch parties linked in to the ICEJ’s live Feast broadcasts from Jerusalem. These Sukkot gatherings have drawn crowds ranging from small groups in underground churches in China and Iraq to several thousand in a large church in the Ivory Coast – which means the total participants in this year’s Feast is easily in the hundreds of thousands.

“When the ICEJ was founded forty years ago during the first Christian celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles in 1980, there were very few Christians worldwide who knew about or observed Sukkot,” said ICEJ President Dr. Jürgen Bühler. “But today, there are millions of Christians around the globe who are discovering this biblical festival and joining in its traditions, such as building sukkahs and waving the four elements. And many of them are tuning into this year’s Feast from Jerusalem, which is allowing us to reach our largest audience ever with a message of biblical faith and standing with Israel.”

“Corona has forced us to explore new technologies and means for keeping the Feast that otherwise may have taken us years to adopt,” added Dr. Bühler. “So the irony is that during the Corona crisis, this biblical holiday is catching on with more Christians than ever before.”

This year’s roster of Feast speakers includes such well-known global Christian leaders as Anne Graham Lotz, Billy Wilson and Jentzen Franklin from the USA, Enoche Adeboye (pastor of the largest church in Africa), Younghoon Lee (pastor of the largest church in Asia), Renê Terra Nova (pastor on one of the largest churches in Latin America), Mats Ola Ishoel (pastor of the largest church in Russia), and popular South African preacher Angus Buchan.

Normally, the ICEJ’s Feast draws over 5,000 Christians from 100 nations up to Jerusalem for a week-long celebration of Sukkot with the Jewish people. Even in years of conflict and terror when regular tourism to Israel was significantly down, the ICEJ’s Christian pilgrims still faithfully came. But the ICEJ was forced to go online with this year’s Feast due to COVID-19. Yet, the silver lining has been a massive Christian audience taking part in this year’s truly Global Feast.

The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem was established in September 1980, at a time when the last thirteen national embassies left Jerusalem under threat of an Arab oil embargo. In response, over 1,000 Christians from 32 nations who had gathered in Jerusalem for the first Feast of Tabernacles decided to open the Christian Embassy as an act of solidarity with the Jewish people’s deep attachment to Jerusalem. Today, the ICEJ is considered the world’s largest pro-Israel Christian ministry, with branch offices in over 90 nations and a reach into more than 170 nations worldwide.