Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 89, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 April 1916 — JERUSALEM AT EASTER TIME [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

JERUSALEM AT EASTER TIME

tow esurrection Day kn Celebrated There (frrith Gorgeous Magnif- \ 1 icence by the Latin, ZL /)Greeh, Armenian and i Coptic Branches of the / Christian Church.

—* JERUSALEM is the true Easter city. YO’ Not only is Easter celebrated there jsg with gorgeous magnificence by the 11 Christian churches—Latin, Greek, ArI irienian, Coptic—but the large and evergrowing Jewish population of Jerusa--1 Jem keeps the passover with all the charm of its cosmopolitanism, and even the Mohammedans have their Easter pilgrimage to the grave of Moses. The throng of Easter pilgrims from the whole Christian world is a very remarkable sight. To the westerner it is a revelation of oriental Christianity in all its picturesque devotion. Greeks, from all over the Levant; Armenians from Turkey, Persia and the Caucasus; Nestorians from Mesopotamia and Persia; Syrians from Aleppo, Damascus and Beyrout; Abyssinians from the hermit land of northeast Africa; Copts from Egypt, and men from the ancient churches of southern India, and, above all, Russians who nowadays form by far the largest contingent of pilgrims—all these races mingle with Latins from western Europe, with Germans, English, Americans, Scandinavians. In the midst of all, and presenting an individuality perhaps more distinct than all the others, you see the Mohammedan master of the land —the Arab in his solemn garb and majestic bearing, and the Turkish official and soldier haughty in the exercise of his duty to keep the Christian pilgrims in check and to preserve order. Elaborate processions and ceremonials make holy week in Jerusalem a gorgeous event, where the intimate note of the resurrection is not conspicuous. Especially does it bring out the division of Christendom, so strikingly shown in the way in which Latins, Armenians and , Copts share the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Particularly at Easter the marvelous services of the Greek orthodox church convey the priority of this church in the Holy Land. And of these ceremonies, none, perhaps, is more impressive than that of the washing of feet on the Thursday before Easter. On that day a platform is erected in the court of the church, which is occupied by the Greek bishop of Jerusalem and 12 high church dignitaries Court, stairs, niches and every corner is crowded by the faithtol to witness the enactment of the scene whdn'Jesus washed the feet of his disciples. The parts of Jesus, John, Peter and Judas are each given to an ecclesiastic, and are read with fine simplicity, though the atory is told with a certain freedom from gospel text. At the end the patriarch washes the feet of the 12 clerics, and, repeating Jesus’ words, "Let us go, for he that will betray me is nigh,” gives the signal to arise, and they all withdraw to the church. Then an olive branch, hanging over the chancel of the platform, is pulled up to the roof of the church amid shouts of joy. Next day. Good Friday, all the lights in the Holy Sepulcher church are extinguished. This is symbolical of the agony and death' of our Lord and of his descent to hell, when the light of the world was taken away for a brief space. Then, on Saturday, the lights are rekindled—by a supernatural agency, so the tradition goes. As the church dignitaries pray in the chapel of the sepulcher, draped In deep mourning, the stone gathers a peculiar moisture which rises as a vapor and, suddenly bursting into a divine flame, kindles the lights. It Is the custom of the people _ to light candles from one another, and the faithful believe that the first of these candles is kindled from that supernatural fire. T'he dawn of EaKter Sunday is celebrated by a—magnificent procession which enacts, in impressively dramatic fashion, the etents of the resurrection morn, when the women found the grave open and empty. Then the faster greeting resounds, “Christ is risen!’’, and the response. “He is truly risen!” The Greek mass, celebrated by 40 priests, ends the ceremony. Although the Easter of the orthodox church <

does not coincide with that of the western churches, holy week in Jerusalem is celebrated predominantly according to the Greek calendar, the services of the other churches being repeated on theiw own dates. In all the Greek orthodox countries —Russia, Roumania, Greece, Bulgaria, Servia, Montenegro, and a large part of Austria-Hungary —Easter is celebrated with great fervor and devotion. The Easter kiss is a well-known incident of these celebrations. Jerusalem is naturally full of churches, monasteries, hospices and hospitals of the various creeds, and every one of them at Easter brings out its own peculiar religious individuality. The Latin church, for instance, whose establishment in Jerusalem harks back to Godfrey de Bouillon and his crusaders, has a number of oriental churches united to the Roman Catholic church. Thus there are the United Greeks, the United Syrians, the United Nestorians, the United Armenians, the Maronites, all of whom celebrate mass in their own tongue and so add in their ceremonies and garb a picturesque distinctiveness to the whole. Then there are the Copts, the Armenians, the Syrian Jacobites, the Nestorians, the Abyssinians, besides Greeks and Protestants. The relative standing of the various churches is in a measure expressed in the way they share the 15 lamps that burn in the Holy Sepulcher chapel, which is in the center of the stone that was rolled away from Jesus’ grave by the angels. Five of these lamps belong to the Latins, five to the Greeks, four to the Armenians and one to the Copts. Away from the ecclesiastical ceremonial the pilgrim in Easter time seeks the traditional places where our Lord spent his last days and nights. Of these Gethsemane is the principal goal, and here the difference in creed among the many visitors is obliterated by an earnest and quiet devotion which is unexpectedly free from the emotional. Another figure has a prominent place in Easter celebrations in Jerusalem; that of Moses, whose liberation of the Jewish people from the yoke of Egypt is commemorated in the ancient Hebrew paschal feast. There is a very little known Mohammedan celebration which, though no longer so general as formerly, is still a most interesting one. To the Mohammedan, it must be remembered, Jerusalem is a holy city, like Mecca and Medina, and there is a saying among Arabs, "Syria is the blessed county, Palestine the holy land, and Jerusalem, the holy city, is the holy of holies.” Native Mohammedans and pilgrims make up a procession and issue from the Sittl Myriam gate. They are joined by throngs Of their brethren from the neighboring villages, and, amid the wildest enthusiasm, with standards being borne aloft and to the typical Arab music of drum and fife, the pilgrimage proceeds in the direction of the Dead sea. As the Arabs claim common descent with the Jews from Abraham, the Holy Land holds traditions’ equally sacred to them. Jerusalem is second only to Mecca in sanctity because it contains, according to tradition, the rock of Abraham’s, sacrifice, over which the famed mosque of Omar is built. The Arab pilgrimage to the burial place of Moses recalls the similar one to the tomb of Noah, near the ruins of Baalbek, a short distance from Damascus. In cosmopolitan charm Easter In Constantinople almost equals that found in Jerusalem The capital of the Turkish empire is, of course, in itself highly cosmopolitan; and there is no other city in the world where so many languages are heard in the streets, not by foreigners, but by the variegated native population. The background here is not Jewish and Mohammedan, as in Jerusalem, but Mohammedan and Christian, with a strong tinge of Spanish

seats ftp ft# est Of tlie native Christians the Greeks predominate, but there has always been a very numerous Armenian element in Constantinople. The magnificent Greek orthodox ceremonial well reflects the towering strength of that church in the Levant, which for centuries, under the absolute, rule of the Ottoman sultans, acted in the capacity of imperial overseer of the Christian people under Turkish sway. Until the comparatively recent rise of the Balkan nationalities —Roumanian, Servian, Bulgarian, Montenegrin —Greek was the language of all cultured people of orthodox faith outside of Russia and Austria-Hungary. And Greek intellectual, social and political control through the unifying power of the Greek church was more complete under Ottoman rule than it had been under the Byzantine emperors. Recent events have once more shown the force of the people of Greek speech. Through the breaking away of the Bulgarian church and the erection of a Bulgarian exarchate, Greek in religion, but Bulgarian in speech and political aims, it has been temporarily weakened. “Christos Anesti” —“Christ is risen’’ —is the Easter cry in Constantinople that you hear on all sides accompanied by the exchange of the traditional kiss. “Paskalia Foulia” —“flowers of Easter time” —are sold everywhere to the festive throng in the narrow streets. In the butcher shops you see the passover lambs with gilded feet and the choice pieces—the kidneys placed on a gold foil. The variety of types and, costumes seen in this throng where the West meets the East is most remarkable. All the Christians of the Levant are there; Bulgarians in embroidered jackets; Greeks from the mountains, sporting the fustanella, the kilt which resembles a dancer’s skirt; burly men from the Adriatic, Levantines, Armenians; ladies in the latest Paris fashions, genuine and otherwise, and, of course, a host of French, Germans, Italians, Austrians, Russians, English and Americans. The Mohammedan is by no means inconspicuous, whether he be Turk, Arab in flowing robes, Persian merchant, Albanian soldier, Kurdish hamal in his Sunday dress or even negro women in yellow dress. The westerner wends his way from Pera across the bridge through the suburbs of Jubalee-Kepoosee, past the Rose mosque—Gul Jamee—to the Christian quarter of Imi-Kapoo, where he finds the festive joy of the Greek Easter. The procession of the Greek clergy—some of them strikingly handsome men with their long beards and blue eyes—starts from the patriarchal palace and proceeds past the Turkish guards, who keep the crowd in check, to the Greek church. Though small, it is richly adorned with chiseled chancel and pillars with ivory eagles. After long litanies, prayers, responsories and benedictions characteristic of Greek ritual, the Easter gospel is read. This is done in no less than six languages, and, curiously enough, two them are Mohammedan, Arabic and Persian. The others are French and Italian, Albanian and Greek. The Greek is read, or, rather, sung, with a peculiar Intonation by the deacon, and the others are read by special readers in characteristic garb. Meanwhile mass is being celebrated in a niche of the altar, where the patriarch blesses the Easter offerings. The faithful in their festive mood are quite free in their behavior and remarks as they listen to the readings in six languages, of which only Greek, French and Italian is really understood. After the service the patriarch and his attendants retire to the patriarchal palace, where a reception la held. . . A