Pilgrims pass through the Vatican’s Holy Door as Christmas marks the start of the Holy Year 2025

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pilgrims lined up early Wednesday to pass through the large Holy Door at the entrance to St. Peter’s Basilica as Christmas marked the start of celebrations for the Holy Year 2025 that are expected to bring some 32 million Catholic faithful to Rome.

Passage through the Holy Door is a way for the faithful to receive indulgences or forgiveness of their sins during a jubilee, a quarter-century tradition that dates back to the 1300s. On Christmas Eve, Pope Francis knocked on the door and was the first to walk through it, inaugurating the 2025 Jubilee, which he has dedicated to hope.

Pilgrims underwent security checks before entering the Holy Door amid fresh security fears after a deadly attack on a Christmas market in Germany. Many stopped, touched the door as they passed and crossed themselves as they entered the basilica dedicated to St. Peter, the founder of the Roman Catholic Church.

At noon, Francis will deliver the address “Urbi et Orbi” — “To the City and the World,” which serves as a summary of the hardships facing the world this year.

A Chrismukkah miracle as Hanukkah and Christmas coincide

Hanukkah, Judaism’s eight-day festival of lights, begins on Christmas Day this year, which has only happened four times since 1900.

The calendar’s confluence has inspired some religious leaders to host interfaith gatherings, such as a Chicanukah party hosted last week by several Jewish organizations in Houston, Texas, that brought together members of the city’s Latino and Jewish communities for latkes, the traditional potato pancake eaten on Hanukkah, topped with guacamole and salsa.

While Hanukkah is intended as a happy, solemn holiday, rabbis note that it comes this year as wars rage in the Middle East and fears grow about widespread incidents of anti-Semitism. The holidays rarely overlap because the Jewish calendar is based on lunar cycles and does not agree with the Gregorian calendar, which sets Christmas on December 25th. The last time Hanukkah began on Christmas Day was in 2005.

German celebrations dampened by market attack

German celebrations were marred on Friday by a car attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg that killed five people, including a 9-year-old boy, and injured 200 people. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier rewrote his recorded Christmas speech on the occasion of the attack and said: “There is sadness, pain, horror and incomprehension about what happened in Magdeburg.” He called on the Germans to “stand together” and that “hate and Violence should not have the last word.”

A 50-year-old Saudi doctor, who had been working as a doctor in Germany since 2006, was arrested on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and bodily harm. The suspect’s X account describes him as a former Muslim and is full of anti-Islamic themes. He criticized authorities for failing to combat “the Islamization of Germany” and expressed support for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

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Barry reported from Milan. Associated Press writers Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem and David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany, contributed to this report.