Christmas To-day in Old Bethlehem.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18946, 17 December 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

Christmas To-day in Old Bethlehem.

Scenes at the Grotto of the Nativity.

g\fC>ST COUNTRIES keep one Christmas, but the birthplace of Our Lord celebrates three, according to the Latin or Western, the Orthodox or Eastern, and the Armenian rites, oh December 25, and on January 7 and 20 respectively, writes Major Edward Keith-Roach, 0.8. E. All three have rights to worship in the Grotto of the Nativity, situated twenty feet below the Catholicon of the Church.

The Basilica gf the Nativity, dedicat ed to St Mary, is one of the noblesl Christian monuments in existence, anc the one building of greatest antiquity still in constant use for religious wor ship. As early as the second century the cave was shown as the scene of Our Lord’s birth, and the present bui*d ing has been a place of pilgrimage and devotion without interruption since the day’s of Constantine. Built by Constantine in A.D. 320, it was restored and enlarged in the sixth century by Justinian. Baldwin tie First was crowned here on Christmas Day, 1101. During the Latin kingdom of the Crusades, Edward the Fourth of England in 1482 supplied the lead fur the roof, which was unfortunately re moved by the Turks in the early part of the seventeenth century for the manufacture of bullets. The Latin Celebration. The Grotto of the Nativity, approached by stairways in the northern a.id southern transepts, is 30 feet by 11 feet in extent, and at the east end there is an altar on which any one of the three rites may officiate during special festivals. Under this alter a silver star, surrounded by the Latin inscription, “Hie de Virgine _ Maria Jesus Christus Nat us Est,” marks the spot where Christ was bom. Above the star, sixteen silver lamps are always burning, six Orthodox, four Latin, and six Armenian. Almost opposite the recess of the Nativity is the Chapel of the Manger, where Latin tradition says the sacred manger lay. The entrance to the Basilica is through a low door—“the eye of the needle’*—a protection against the entrance of camfels and donkeys; therefore, all who enter have to bow the head. On the Western Christmas Eve the Latin Patriarch, leaving Jerusalem, enters Bethlehem soon after noon, with great ceremony. At half past nine in the evening he requests the Orthodox to open the iron door of the Basilica. He celebrates midnight Mass in the Latin Church adjoining the north side of the Basilica. Forty-five minutes after midnight, the Orthodox Church hold a Mass in the Catholicon, and at about two o’clock in the morning the Latin procession enters the Grotto. An image of the Infant Jesus is placed by His Beatitude the Latin Pat riarch on the Star of the Nativity, and after prayer is removed to the manger. During the celebration the Orthodox and Armenian Dragomans stand on either side of the Star of the Nativity, and immediately after the procession leaves the Grotto. The Eastern Rites. At 11 am. on Eastern Christmas Eve I the Orthodox Patriarch arrives with his suite in Bethlehem, and is received by the clergy in sacerdotal vestments, by banner-bearers, cross-carriers, and thurifers. After vesting, His Beatitude proceeds through the Basilica, descends to the Grotto, and censes the Star of the Nativity and the Manger. He then leaves the Grotto, and, sitting upon his throne in the Catholicon, attends the reading of the Four Gospels; sunset prayers then begin. At 4 p.m., these prayers being over, Latin clergy, accompanied by the Father Custos of the Holy Land, proceed to the Grotto in procession, and, after a short prayer i commemora tion of Epiphany, the Image of the Infant Jesus is removed from the Manger and taken to the Latin Church.

At ten o’clock the Patriarch re-enters the Catholicon and is seated upon his throne. At midnight His Beatitude goes to the Grotto in procession, where a portion of the Gospel is read and prayers are offered for his Majesty King George V and the Orthodox Kings, and the sacred Star is censed and kissed. During the service a Latin sexton stands at the southern end of the Chapel of the Manger. The procession then leaves the Grotto and marches three times round the Church, after which His Beatitude proceeds to his Altar, where the Mass is completed. After Orthodox procession is over representative Bishops of the SyrianJacobites and the Coptic Church hold services there, followed by Masses at the Armenian Altar in the north transept.

Armenian Devotions. In the Armenian Church Christmas and Epiphany are celebrated the same

•night. His Beatitude the Patriarch applies to the Orthodox Church in the evening for the opening of the door at 9.30 and, after Mass at their Altar, they descend to the Grotto. Each of these services is singularly different, and singularly beautiful. The extreme dignity of the Pontifical Mass of the Latin; the rich vestments of the Orthodox, including the crown of gold, scintillating with gems, worn by His Beatitude; the handsome embroideries of the Armenians, surmounted with their black watered-silk headdress culminating in a peak; and the Oriental splendour of the Copt and Jacobite all tend to make Bethlehem’s three Christmases unique. At each service the Church is crowded with worshippers who have come from near and far. We do not expect Occidental and Oriental, northerner and southerner, to worship in the same way, but in Bethlehem the differences of race and language seem very little, and whichever Christmas day we attend, we cannot but realise we are taking part in a ceremony hallowed thr ugh the centuries by the devotion and worship of countless pilgrims. Peasant woman and rich American, high official and poor man, Eastern or Western, we all sit or kneel together, commemorating, each in our own way, the birthday of One who brought a message of love and peace to the world.