Prayers For End To Strife

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31655, 16 April 1968, Page 16

Prayers For End To Strife

CN Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) NEW YORK, April 15. Easter—the day of Resurrection and hope —brought prayers t hroughout the Christian world for peace in Asia and an end to racial strife, class hatred and domination of the weak by the strong, the Associated Press reported. “We are at the end of our despair in the nation's cities. Thank God for Easter Sunday and for the hope it brings,” said the Rev. Arthur Lee Kinsolving at St James’ Episcopal Church, New York. President Johnson attended services at St Francis Xavier Roman Catholic Church in Stonewall. Texas, and St Barnabas Episcopal Church in Fredericksburg, and heard prayers for peace and harmony among his countrymvn of every race and religion.

But fierce fighting continued throughout Easter in Vietnam. One United States

Marine said: “I celebrated by jumping into a hole." Six thousand Easter eggs arrived by helicopter at the Americans’ Khe Sanh combat base. Two minutes later six mortar and rocket rounds exploded on the airstrip, wounding three marines. In Korea, North Korean Communists killed two Americans and two other soldiers of the United Nations Command in an ambush south of the Panmunjom armistice conference area. Violence mixed with joyous celebration elsewhere. Thousands of pilgrims jammed into Jerusalem, the Holy City of Christ’s death and resurrection, for Easter worship. The city, united under Israeli rule after 20 years divided by mines, barbed wire and a no-man's land, was peaceful. But a few miles to the north an Israeli soldier was killed in one of three brief fire-fights between Israeli and Jordanian troops. j Left-wing demonstrators in West Berlin battled with (police for the fourth successive day and broke up the

traditional Easter parade on the Kurfuerstendamm. West Berliners again were prevented from seeing relatives and friends in East Berlin. Communist East German authorities had refused to discuss a holiday pass agreement. Bishop Frantisek Tomasek, Apostolic Administrator of the Prague Roman Catholic Diocese, said: “In Czechoslovakia, we have hopes for the first time that the Church will resurrect from oppression to a new life in the kingdom of love.” Similar messages were heard by thousands of Catholics crowding churches throughout the country. The new Communist regime has promised to restore religious freedom. Bishop Tomasek urged believers to “forgive those who have sinned against you.” In England, about 5000 pacifists demonstrating for nuclear disarmament and an end to the war in Vietnam, ended a 54-miie folk-singing march in London. The march started on Friday from the H-bomb centre at Aldermaston. About 400 persons marched through the university town

of Oxford in a memorial to Dr King. The Archbishop of Canterbury said in his Easter message: “To exclude from Chrisitan fellowship a person of another race or another colour might be to exclude the presence of Jesus Himself.” For the first time, a Negro conducted the annual sunrise services in a Buffalo music hall. An integrated crowd of 3000 attended. Two ministers—one Negro and one white—officiated in nationally-televised services at Germantown community Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, a formerly white congregation which merged with a Negro congregation. An inter-faith council sponsored a rally in Detroit to involve people in social justice programmes. In Lansing, Michigan’s capital, migrant farm workers marched to call attention to their problems. Philadelphia and New York had their traditional parades of citizens in their Sunday best. Parts of Fifth Avenue were closed for three hours for New York’s parade.