Episcopal congregation builds Holy Land app for virtual pilgrimages

This winter, hundreds of Episcopalians embarked on a walking pilgrimage around the Holy Land without ever having to set foot outside their neighborhoods—thanks to an app built by St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church in Columbia, South Carolina.

The church’s smartphone app, which launched on November 29, allows users to trace a virtual 98-mile path through and around Jerusalem that follows the story of the Gospel of Luke. As with a fitness tracker, the app logs your mileage whenever you walk—wherever you are in the world–and the app’s map shows equivalent distances covered in the Holy Land, divided into six segments.

It isn’t exactly a substitute for an actual Holy Land pilgrimage, like the one that St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields clergy leaders had hoped to plan with their congregation. But with the coronavirus pandemic curbing international travel, this digital alternative has been widely embraced by phone-based pilgrims interested in learning about the land where Jesus once walked.