THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE AT JERUSALEM.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume I, Issue 34, 26 August 1863, Page 6

THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE AT JERUSALEM.

EXTRAORDINARY SCENES.

A correspondent of the Times, who was a witness of the great ceremonial of the Greek Church of Jerusalem, and of the still greater ceremonial of the combined Greek, Armenian, and Coptic Churches with respect to the " Holy Fire," gives a deplorable account of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. "In all the corridors," he says, " in the entire circuit of the apse, in all the chapels, in the Church of the Invention of the Cross, in our Saviour's prison, in all the aisles, ruin and desolation are making rapid strides—not a pillar, not a floor, not a wall, not a roof is fit for the House of God. Certain portions of the floor and aisles are used for the purposes of our humanity—indeed, on this occe sion, any but the most conspicuous parts were used by any one, and the obscenities that met the eye were truly disgusting. The effluvium that hung about was unbearable. It was, of course, rendered worse by the quantity of food which was being eaten by thousands of beings during the next 24 hours; but the state of every part of the church (other than the Latin Church and the Greek nave is a disgrace in its rottenness and in its filth; while worse than all, in the very rotunda where the sepulchre stands, one quarter of the noble dome is completely uncovered and gone, large pieces of the remaining framework are hanging down, the rest is as rotten as the wood in an old barn, and the rain on that night pattered down on the spot where onr Saviour was laid. I stood for a quarter of an hour in a ' large puddle with an umbrella up, within six | feet of the grave which Joseph of Arimathea ' selected because it had been undefiled by the presence of man. What a mockery was the accumulated defilement before my eyes—food, excrement, imprecations, blasphemy, dirt, and desolation, redolent and resonant around!" At the first ceremonial, there was present in the corridor of the Latin church, where our Lord appeared to Mary as the gardener (and which, with the Greek nave, is the only part that is properly preserved), two or three harems of ladies, who had come to see the Giaour's show. They were evidently rich, and were a refreshing sight amid the mass of squalid misery, dirt, and filth which lay around. "Their beds and night-dresses were of the softest and whitest; their coverlets of the richest silks; they sat up laughing and chatting, and signalling to each other with the smallest of hands, the whitest of arms, and the darkest of eyes. They pulled their yashmaks down that the Giaour might see their faces. Their black maids bustled about over the beds, and the young ladies ducked their heads under, and then put them out again and sat up and laughed till the place rang again, while three tall eunuchs knelt with drawn swords in front of that soft mass of down and silk and flesh, perfumed with rose-attar." As a pageant, the ceremonial was magnificent. j " Flags and banners, mitred heads, crosiers and diamonds, deep bass voices, three thousaud hands armed with the living flame, crosses and genu- : flexions, incense and blessings, Roman candles and other sweetmeats, all made up a vision which millions have come from the distant parts , of the earth to see, and none should on any ac- , count omit who are near the Holy Land at Easter tide." The second spectacle, that of the " Descent of the Fire," was by daylight. " As the time drew on, men seemed to go out of their minds with excitement. The refrain would be taken up by ! the Armenians, ' Jesus Christ shed His blood for us, for us, for us.' The Greeks and the Copts would continue it in the same words, the staves w uld get louder and louder—each would dwell on the last ' for us,' as if it meant for us alone, j when one of an opposing sect would shriek out, i 1 That's a lie; it was not for you!' then a fight and a general scrimmage of all who were near \ the combatants, till the whack, whack, whack of a certain Turkish colonel who kept order by means of a terrible whip, brought half-a-dozen ! broken heads and sobered minds to reason. j Half-a-dozen of these fights occurred during three-quarters of an hour preceding the ceremonial. They are almost always accompanied by assassination, and this year was no exception to the rule, for a man was stabbed and died. At I last, at half-past two o'clock," the bell sounded, and the pageant began. Preceded by his clergy, j the Greek patriarch came forth in gorgeous ap-! pare! of white, followed by the Armenian bishop, j in the absence of the Armenian patriarch, j While the deep voices of the clergy sang the spe- j cial hymn of prayer and praise, he moved slowly j three times round the Holy Sepulchre, and then, ! followed by the Armenian mVhop, and by him j alone, he opened and entered the sacred door and passed within. As the door closed on them the | excitement of the populace was beyond all belief—shrieks, arms tossed on high, hair and dresses torn, were the external proofs of a tempest that raged within. It was exactly seven minutes that this frenzy lasted before it was gratified by the sight of the heaven-sent flame. The theory is that the Armenian patriarch stays in the ante-chapel, where is the stone on which sat the angel at the door of the sepulchre, and that the Greek patriarch goes into the sepulchre itself, j which is only large enough to hold three or four persons, and after prayer receives the flame di- j rect from heaven." " During the seven minutes that the patriarch was closeted with the angel, who, many say, brings the flame, I observed a number of men in white aprons and dresses, and with white skull-

caps, exactly like cooks. These, I learnt, were ardent devotees, anxious to be the first to seize the living fire, and that the object of the dress ! was to prevent the burning of their hair and their persons. They crowded round a little low I aperture communicating with the angel's ante- | room. All of a sudden one of these men gave a ! most unearthly howl, and, springing to his feet, J rushed forth with a flambeau, the flame of which | was certainly as big as a Guardsman's bearskin. I The noise, and the motion and the figure combined, seem id to those above much more as if the fire had ascended from below by means of a scullion than that it had descended from above by j means of a bishop. The fortunate possessor of I the light was immediately knocked down, and I half-a-dozen flambeaux lit from the holy one, I when he was allowed to proceed, and not daring to come up the main passage, he went round to altar by another way, and in less time than I can write the flame was communicated from hand to hand, it spread from circle to circle, it rose from tier to tier, it sprang from mass to mass, it swept from gallery to gallery up to the roof, and in exactly two and a-haif minutes from its first appearance the entire building was one mass of flame. So close were the people packed that the flambeaux in many cases looked like one continued fire. Then the delight of all was at its highest. Everybody wallowed in the Divine element. Men bared their arms, and necks, ' and breasts, and bathed themselves all over. Women washed their faces and arms in liquid flame, and passed it round and under their chil- | dren till the children shrieked again. They said i the fire would not hurt though it would burn, and they certainly acted as if their words were j true. That it would burn was proved next day \ by a woman who produced their child to the authorities with both its eyes out. Messengers l were laid on from the door of the church who carried the sacred fire to all the villages around. j When any man wanted to carry his flambeau to another part, or to leave the church, he raised himself on the shoulders of those near him, and he actually ran, rather than walked, over the heads of all. Numbers were constantly running about in this way. Hair was on fire, beards were on fire, dresses on fire ; the only wonder is the whole place is not burnt down. The heat was intense, the smoke and dirt were fearful, the i shrieking and the noise the most horrible I have : ever heard. It is the Saturnalia revived—a Pandemonium in the name of God." I The writer concludes:—" It was refreshing to find that the Latins, though they give up their part of the building for the purposes of the show, have no faith in the holy fire. I went to see the Latin patriarch, a noble specimen of a gentleman and a Christian, if halt reported of him be true. After the interview I left with his Chancellor, and, as the latter walked with me some way, I mentioned the Greek fire. He lifted his hands and his eyes to Heaven, and uttered these words: —• Par fanima di iSan Gennaio P —by the soul of St. Januarius, an awful imposture!'"