“Only with people, with community” will the Holy Land remain holy, says Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal, the region’s Roman Catholic leader. But the number of Christians in Israel and the West Bank is declining at an alarming rate.

Watch more of Kim Lawton’s interviews about the diminishing numbers of Christians in the Holy Land and the complicated—sometimes controversial—efforts to support them.

At a meeting in London’s historic Lambeth Palace, top Anglican and Roman Catholic leaders launched a new effort to support Christians in the Holy Land. "Have these people a future in their ancestral home? We hope and pray that they do,” says Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

Watch more from participants in this week’s conference at London’s Lambeth Palace about the situation of Christians in the Holy Land and how people of faith around the world can help work for Middle East peace.

Violence in Jerusalem is no surprise, according to writer James Carroll, “because that’s the human story. The great thing about Jerusalem is it’s a place where the human story gets transcended.”

Gidon Bromberg of Friends of the Earth Middle East says the Jordan River, holy to half of humanity, has become a mixture of sewage water and agricultural runoff unsafe for the pilgrims who come to be baptized in it.

It was a week of prayers and pleas for peace and gestures of reconciliation to all sides in the Holy Land.

"I don't think any of us are under any illusions that we're going to solve the peace problem, but we also realize that you can't have peace without religious leaders," says former US ambassador Tony Hall.