„It happens a lot,“ says Archbishop Aristarchos, the chief secretary of the patriarchate. „You walk down the street and suddenly they spit at you for no reason.“

„They came in a pack, out of nowhere,“ said Father Goosan. „I know there are fanatical Haredi groups that don’t represent the general public but it’s still enraging. It all begins with education. It’s the responsibility of these men’s yeshiva heads to teach them not to behave this way,“ he says.

Father Goosan and other Patriarchy members are trying to walk as little as possible in the Old City streets. „Once we walked from the [Armenian] church to the Jaffa Gate and on that short section four different people spat at us,“ he says.   article