Later this week…

The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor; the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd Dr Rowan Williams; Primate of the Armenian Church of Great Britain Bishop Nathan Hovhannisian and the Free Churches Moderator, the Reverend David Coffey are undertaking an Advent pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

There will some sort of online journal/blog of their trip, beginning on the 20th.

Aside from everything else, this will make the trip even more interesting:

The chief pastor of the Anglican community in Israel, Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal, is facing mushrooming allegations of nepotism and graft which have clouded the end of his tenure in office, church officials said Wednesday.

The corruption charges, the subject of a four-month internal church committee investigation, have prompted long-time opponents of the bishop to call for his immediate resignation.

The internal church inquiry committee examined the allegations. It concluded that El-Assal arranged to have a tender for the insurance policy of employees of the church’s two schools here issued to a company that promised to give half the commission to his son-in-law.

The 35-page report, which was obtained by The Jerusalem Post, states that the bishop’s actions constituted a "dramatic combination" of nepotism and violation of trust.