JERUSALEM - Thousands of Christians from around the world gathered at Jerusalem holy sites to celebrate Easter, marking the day with prayer and hymns.

The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Michel Sabbah, the top Roman Catholic official in the Holy Land, celebrated Mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built over the skull-shaped rocky mount believed to be the place where Jesus was crucified.

The recent calm in Israeli-Palestinian fighting has attracted many more foreign pilgrims to Jerusalem this year for the Holy Week than in recent years. But the numbers were still lower than the several thousand who used to come before the outbreak of violence in September 2000.

Bix Baker, 53, and his wife Becky, 51, came from Minnesota to spend the Easter holiday with their daughter, who does consulting work for city officials in Ramallah.

Sitting inside Christianity's holiest church with his wife and daughter, the high school science teacher said his students told him he was crazy to travel to Israel.

"We weren't afraid to come," Baker said. "Things seem to be different now, but we would have come anyway because this is where our daughter lives."

Catholics arriving in missionary groups from Spain and France said they included the ailing Pope in their prayers Sunday.

In Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, hundreds of worshippers prayed and lit candles.