Returning to the Holy Land, astride a hybrid buggy

Count Philippe Piccapietra restores the Order of St. Lazarus to its ancient birthplace.

By MIRIAM KRESH
Count Philippe Piccapietra and Deputy Mayor Naomi Tsur (photo credit: Courtesy)
Count Philippe Piccapietra and Deputy Mayor Naomi Tsur
(photo credit: Courtesy)
‘Piccapietra,” the voice on the phone said briskly.
The person so simply identifying himself is Count Philippe Piccapietra, Grand Chancellor and delegate for the Holy Land of the Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem. And if that sounds like a medieval knight galloping over the Old City’s cobblestones with a rippling banner in his armored fist, it’s not far from the truth. Only instead of heading for a horse stable, Piccapietra intends to release a herd of electronic hybrid buggies into the Old City.
While the Crusades raged in the Holy Land in 1099, the Order of St. Lazarus established a hospital outside the walls of Jerusalem to treat knights who had contracted leprosy. Over time, the organization extended its help to leprous knights from other Crusader orders, developing into a healing house for the local population as well.
After Saladin conquered the Holy Land in 1291, all surviving Christians were enslaved or expelled. The Order of St.
Lazarus returned to Europe and continued its charitable healing mission in France and Italy. It survived historical ups and downs over the centuries, establishing charitable concerns across Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. But in 700 years, the order never returned to the Holy Land.
Until June 2012, when members of the order established an office in a hotel outside Jaffa Gate. Undaunted by seven centuries of absence, the Order of St. Lazarus resumed its historic mission in the Holy Land.
“We heal mind, spirit and body, regardless of political, ethnic and religious borders,” says Piccapietra, a Swiss count whose family has roots in the order. “But we don’t intend to establish hospitals. There’s an excellent medical system in place already, and Israel has the world’s best doctors. We focus on small- and medium-sized charities; that way we become informed of the community’s needs. We work with needy families, disadvantaged youth and day care for the elderly.”
Bringing up a cause that’s gaining public attention, he adds, “One of our projects in Jerusalem is access to the places in the Old City for handicapped and reduced-mobility people. The Old City is beautiful, if you can walk. If you can’t walk, it’s a terrible city. It’s old and unplanned, up and down, steps… very difficult for the handicapped.” To that end, the Order already has three twoseater hybrid buggies and a oneseater running in the Old City, free of charge for any visitor.
They intended to do a pilot project with four more buggies, imported from Spain to the tune of 13,000 euros each, from January to April of this year. The original agreement with the Jerusalem Municipality was that if the pilot project was successful, another 20 donated buggies would shuttle disabled people throughout an area covering 700 meters in the Old City. The Order had hoped to report the results of the project at the First International Jerusalem Symposium on Green and Accessible Pilgrimage, which took place in Jerusalem’s YMCA this week.
These plans are in past tense because the four buggies meant to start the project are still sitting in customs, tied up in an arcane bureaucratic tangle between the order, the Jerusalem Municipality and the Jerusalem Police. While the buggies accumulate customs fees for their donors, handicapped pilgrims still thread their way through the ancient, cobblestoned and slippery streets of the Old City at their peril. Hopefully, the project will soon move into the present tense, which will require the authorities to stop passing the buck and finishing signing the necessary registration documents for the vehicles.
“We’ve been established near Jaffa Gate for a year already, and have been waiting four months for our electronic buggies to be released from customs,” says Piccapietra with audible frustration. “We need the buggies to start the Green Pilgrimage operation, a free social service granting access to the handicapped to the Old City and reduce pollution and traffic there. If you want to visit the Old City or the Western Wall with your grandmother, why should you have to take a taxi? Instead, you could take a little electric car that doesn’t make noise or add to the pollution and doesn’t block the roads.”
Piccapietra’s view on accessibility expands to the spiritual as well. “Part of our mission in Jerusalem has to do with the pilgrim’s mind-set. To make Jerusalem accessible, we must break up people’s fixed ideas, to prepare them for new influences.
There’s no sense in traveling with your body and keeping your mind in a box, confirming your preset ideas.”
In accordance with the chivalric tradition, the count defines the ideal conditions for open-minded pilgrimage as feeling safe and welcome. “Our duty here is to welcome people in an old-fashioned manner; to assure people that not everybody here is mad and dangerous. I tell everybody that if I can bring my own daughters, ages 10 and 13, and leave them in Jerusalem where they run and play and enjoy life, why can’t you do the same? Why can’t you just be open and fair to everybody? This is how we want to change people’s mind-set, so they can see Jerusalem as it is.”
“There’s a difference between a pilgrim and a tourist,” he continues. “We’d like as many tourists as possible to become green pilgrims – being sustainable in their attitudes to energy and be responsible for the environment where they’re staying as guests. We want to teach pilgrims to leave a green footprint.”
The Order is looking to buy property in Jerusalem. To show adherence to their historical birthplace, they planted an olive tree on Yom Kippur one year ago.
In the meantime, they are based in a hotel, which they dominate with their traditional flags outside and a display of artifacts indoors.
“Our little stronghold sits on the fault line of history. When I leave my office, there are 3,500 years of history on the left side, while on the right side there is a modern city where I can buy an espresso in Mamilla Mall. But we need a real home for the archives, guest rooms, a reception hall.”
The count emphasizes the order’s open nature. “We help people, not because they are Christians. We are helping because we are Christians. We are doing what we believe is the right thing to do. We have members from all Christian churches. Our order is also unique in that we accept Friends of the Order who are not Christian. The Dalai Lama, for instance, became a Friend because of his extraordinary influence for the good.”
When asked if the Order of St. Lazarus is an evangelical order with an eye towards converting locals, Piccapietra became emphatic. “Never, ever! We are not Crusaders, not here to convert anybody, or to give out any kind of promotional material. This is a very important question.
We accept the beliefs of our Christian brothers and celebrate together, but we have no particular message, we are not a church. Myself, I try to be an example of a good person, but this is not at all about conversion.
“We don’t need to convert anybody. We need to inspire people to apply what they’ve already learned in life, in their own religion. I can’t offer you any new secrets. But I can encourage you to apply what you’ve already learned. It’s good enough for all of us. Tikkun olam [healing the world] is what we want to encourage.
“Unlike Crusaders, we want to cross Jerusalem with electronic buggies, not riding horses.”
Quoting the age-old Golden Rule, Piccapietra concludes, “Our principle is simple: do unto others as you would like them to do unto you.” •