TURKS DESPOIL NOTED SHRINE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3339, 13 March 1918, Page 57

TURKS DESPOIL NOTED SHRINE.

An official despatch received in Washington recently from France says that the Turks, before surrendering Jerusalem to the British, brutally mistreated Christian priests, carried off the famous treasure - of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, valued at millions of dollars, and sent to Berlin the church's celebrated ostensory of brilliants. Mgr. Oamaesei, the patriarch of Jerusalem, is said to have. been deposed from his office, and Father Piccardo, an Italian priest, to have died from the effects of Turkish brutalities. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre had remained unmolested heretofore during all the centuries of Moslem occupation of Jerusalem. The same despatch told of indignation among Mussulmen of Asia Minor over the action of a German general in establishing staff headquarters in the great mosque of the city of Aleppo, near the Syrian border. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was consecrated in 336 on the traditional spot where Christ rose from the dead. In the year 614 the buildings comprising the church were destroyed by the Persians. The original building was in the form of a rotunda, the shape of which survives in the existing complex constructure, which assumed various forms in the course of rebuilding during the Middle Ages. The edifice was badly damaged by fire in 1808. The Greeks contrived to secure to . themselves the principal right _to the buildings, and. with the Armenians, contributed most of the money for the erection of the new church. The dilapidated dome beneath which the sepulchre is situated was restored bv architects of various nationalities in 1868, as the result of an agreement made with Turkey by France and Russia. The chief entrance to the church is from a 'ourt on the south. The court is paved with yellowish slabs of stone, and is infested always by traders and beggars. In the interior is the sepulchre proper, enclosed in a 16-sided chapel resting on 18 piers, and containing a great number of chapels appropriated _ to different creeds or nnt ; onalities or marking various spots traditionally connected with the Saviour's Passion.