Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Usha Vance, attended a private mass at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem on Thursday, where he emphasized the role of Jesus Christ as the Prince of Peace after a recent ceasefire agreement in Gaza.
"What an amazing blessing to have visited the site of Christ's death and resurrection. I am immensely grateful to the Greek, Armenian, and Catholic priests who care for this most sacred of places," Vance tweeted after his visit.
Vance, a Roman Catholic, also thanked "the Franciscan monks who celebrated a private mass for my family and many of the Americans working for peace."
"They are a great credit to the Christian faith, and they were kind enough to take the time to minister to us at a very special moment," he added.
Ahead of his visit to the historic church, which is managed by multiple Christian sects, Vance highlighted Christ's role as the Prince of Peace and connected it to the strife afflicting the Holy Land. President Donald Trump brokered a peace deal in the region earlier this month, but has threatened renewed war against Hamas by U.S. allies in the Middle East if they fail to uphold the agreement.
"I hope to go to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which Christians believe is the site that Jesus Christ was crucified in," Vance told reporters on Tuesday.
"And I know that Christians have many titles for Jesus Christ, and one of them is the Prince of Peace. And I'd ask all people of faith, in particular my fellow Christians, to pray that the Prince of Peace can continue to work a miracle in this region of the world."
"I think that we have made incredible strides over the past week," he added. "We're going to have to make a lot more. But I think with your prayers, with God's providence, and with a very good team behind me, I think we're going to get it done."
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was first established in the 4th century A.D., built upon the order of Emperor Constantine I after his conversion to Christianity. Traditionally held as the historic location of Christ's crucifixion, burial, and resurrection, its first building was constructed on the demolished ruins of a Roman temple to Venus.
Various iterations of the church have featured prominently in Christian history, including when the Islamic Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim ordered the destruction of the original structure in A.D. 1009, prompting outrage in the Christian world that would culminate in the First Crusade later that century.
Vance's visit to the church comes the same day he criticized a vote in the Israeli parliament about the annexation of the West Bank as an "insult" to the Trump administration's wider goals for peace and reconstruction, according to the Associated Press.
"I personally take some insult to it," Vance told reporters on the tarmac of Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv about the vote, which narrowly passed Wednesday by a majority of 25-24. "The policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office likewise dismissed the Knesset's vote, which is unlikely to successfully move forward, as a "political stunt" and "a deliberate political provocation by the opposition to sow discord."
