Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

by C. R. Conder

The scene in the Russian cathedral at Easter time, is striking and instructive. The building is of modern Byzantine architecture, with a fine peal of bells. The walls are painted salmon-colour, with an intricate arabesque in blue and red; the screen in front of the apses is of light oak, with pictures let in and brightly coloured on gold backgrounds; the central gate in this screen is of brass, with silver lamps and candlesticks placed in front.

The congregation generally consists principally of women, but to the right stand the men, unkempt and uncombed, their furrowed features peering out from shaggy locks and long beards, their clothes of dull colours and thickly padded, their feet and legs cased in huge knee-boots. The women wear the same neutral tints, and knee-boots; they have heavy shawls over their heads. The priests are also bearded, with hair down to their shoulders—truly a barbarous priesthood, with a barbarous congregation. The Saviour is represented in Russian pictures with a similar beard and hair.

The religious ecstasy of the congregation was always intense. They took no part in the service, but continued to cross themselves, and knelt at intervals to kiss the floor, many knocking their heads so hard against it as to be heard at the other end of the church. Small tapers were burnt on the great silver candlesticks, and those who stood near the door passed the taper to those in front, each person bowing to the one who handed it, until those near the screen received it; it was then lighted, and when half burnt was put out, and left for its owner to claim.

The ritual was impressive; six choristers in ordinary dress stood round a great lectern just outside the screen, at the top of the steps leading up to it. The bass voice was fine, and the tenor very sweet; the service is frequently attended by Europeans in Jerusalem for the sake of the music.

A tall priest in a rich robe of cloth-of-gold and dark red velvet, stood before the brass gates, a crown on his head, a censer in his hand. His intoned sentences were answered by the responses of the choir. Presently the gates opened, and three priests came out of the mysterious sanctuary, where the golden candlestick and reliquaries could be seen on the altar. The Archimandrite, in flowing robes of black satin, with a broad stole of cloth-of-gold, his head veiled, and his long grey beard covering his breast, swept down the steps; he was preceded by black-robed acolytes, and followed by two other priests scarcely less magnificently dressed. The Gospel was read at a lectern in the middle of the congregation, the censer was swung, and the great bells boomed out during the lesson.

I have attended many religious services, Christian, Jewish, and Moslem, but none more remarkable for barbaric grandeur and pomp. The songs of Latin monks, the shrill nasal clamour of the Armenians, the Jewish gesticulation, are all far less dignified than the solemn chants of the Russian cathedral. The fanaticism of the pilgrims, drawn from the lowest and most ignorant peasant class, surpasses anything in Christendom, and is only equalled by that of the Moslems.

Another large section of the Easter pilgrims in Jerusalem is formed by the wealthy and powerful Armenian sect, to whom the church of St. James on Zion belongs—a very interesting building, carpeted with rich rugs, and lined with tiles and tortoise-shell. The visitor is here sprinkled with rose-water, and valuable jewelled missals are presented for the congregation to kiss.

The remaining nationalities found in Palestine may be briefly dismissed. On Carmel, and in Upper Galilee, the Druses form a large percentage of the population; but their life and habits have been discussed by well-informed writers, and there is no space to enlarge here on their curious admixture of Aryan and Semitic ideas, or on their belief in the duality of the Divine nature, and in incarnations of the Deity. There are also gipsies in Palestine, who engage in the usual occupations of gipsies, and who are called Naury. They have almost forgotten their own language, and speak Arabic as a rule. At sea-side towns there is a curious mixture of mongrel nationalities—Maltese, Greeks, Slavs, and Levantines, with stray specimens of most European nations—a class as uninteresting as they are degraded.

We may now consider the history of the rise and progress of the two German colonies which have obtained a footing in Palestine; for without some account of these enterprises the sketch of the inhabitants of the Holy Land would be incomplete.

The German colonists belong to a religious society known as the “Temple,” which originated among the Pietists of Wurtemburg, who, without leaving the Lutheran Church, separated themselves from the world, and engaged in Sunday meetings for prayer and edification. The Pietists accept as their standard the explanation given by Dr. J. A. Bengel (in his Gnomon of the New Testament), of the prophecies in the Revelation. Among the friends and disciples of Bengel was a certain Dr. Hoffmann, who obtained from Frederick, the eccentric King of Wurtemburg, a tract of barren land at Kornthal, where his disciples established a Pietist colony, which he intended to transplant later to Palestine. Hoffmann, however, died, and his followers remained contentedly on their lands; but Hoffmann’s son was not forgetful of his father’s designs, and instituted a new colony at Kirschenhardthof, with a special view to its final removal to the Holy Land. Among his earliest disciples was Herr G. D. Hardegg, who became in time a leader among the Temple Pietists.