Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

by C. R. Conder

The most impressive portion of the church is, however, the nave east of the rotunda belonging to the Greeks, with its great screen in front of the three eastern apses. The floor is unoccupied, save by the short column marking the “centre of the world.” The dome above is poor, rudely whitewashed, and painted in fresco, with the long strings of globular lamps usually seen in Greek churches; but the glory of the place consists in the lofty screen and the panelling of the side walls. Into the panelling dark pictures are framed, and gilded thrones for the bishop and patriarch stand, one each side, beyond the dark wooden choir-stalls. The screen towers up to the roof, and presents figures, in rows one above another, standing in canopied recesses, but all in low relief: in the screen are the gates of the apses, and over each gale is a little purple glass lamp, the colour of which, in the gloom and beside the tarnished gilding, is truly magnificent. Four candlesticks of grey marble beautifully carved, the central pair eight feet high, stand before the steps to the screen; they are presents from the Czar, and have the Russian eagle on them.

Passing over without description the many minor chapels, which are dingy and uninteresting, there remains only the Chapel of Calvary to notice. It is as dark as the greater part of the rest of the church, yet on arriving at the top of the steep stairs, the general effect is a blaze of gold. Nearly the whole of the east end is occupied by the Greek altar. The pictures above it have been covered with gold plates, leaving only the faces visible. The lamps are gold, the sacred vessels are gold. The roof is very low, and painted in well executed and ancient fresco on a blue ground. A faint smell of rosewater pervades the chapel, mingled with an odour of stale incense.

Sunday after Sunday we revisited the venerable church, and followed the brown Franciscans in their march round the sacred stations, listening to the deep sonorous tones of their chant. On one occasion this was suddenly drowned by the high nasal scream of the Armenians, and we found the celebrant of the latter rite in the Calvary Chapel,—a priest with a long beard and peaked Armenian hood. The responses were made by black-robed acolytes in fezzes, and a second minister, in gaudy robes, with a gilt-paper crown much too large for him, swung a censer. The Latin ritual seemed simple and dignified, its music melodious, and its ministers reverential, when contrasted with the unearthly screeching and childish mummeries of the Oriental sect.

The plaintive chant of the Franciscans attracted us to the spot where the officiating priest stood, at the door of the Chapel of the Angel. The monks knelt in a double row, and the scene was impressive; the background was formed by the great screen; in front was the dark chapel—a church within a church. Not less affecting was the aspect of the congregation, many with sad pale faces telling of no common histories. One man especially used to draw my attention; light haired, pale, gaunt, and shabby, kneeling with his little taper in one hand, the other held out in an attitude of entreaty; his wild eyes were fixed on the marble Tomb, as though he could hardly believe that, after many miles of journey, he at last really beheld the Holy Sepulchre. In him one might fancy a penitent of the old Crusading times, sent on pilgrimage to expiate some great crime; and the memories of seven centuries rose up—of the king who refused to be crowned where his Master had suffered; of the strong men in mail who had knelt in tears on these stones, and clanked their iron heels about the church; of the time when the proudest chivalry of Europe had devoted their lives to redeem the few feet of rock, where they believed the Holy Saviour to have hung on the cross.

But the time to see the church is the season of Easter. In 1873 and 1875 I was present at the so-called Holy Fire. On the first occasion alone, on the second with Lieut. Kitchener, with whom I rode sixty miles in one day from Gaza to see the spectacle.

On the evening before the day of the Fire, the whole huge building was full of pilgrims, and the long winding passages and galleries were blocked with human beings, fast asleep, crouched against the walls or extended on mattresses. In the passage from the door to the rotunda, Armenian women were propped in long rows against the walls, on a kind of bench. Most of the pilgrims were asleep, but some still showed by frequent crossings, prostrations, and sighs, that the keenness of their ecstasy was unabated.

In 1875 the pilgrimage to Neby Mûsa was going on at the same time, and parties of wild fanatical Moslems paraded the streets of Jerusalem, bearing green banners surmounted with the crescent and inscribed with Arabic texts. A bodyguard armed with battle-axes, spears, and long brass-bound guns accompanied each flag, and a couple of big drums with cymbals followed. It speaks well for the Turks, that with all the elements of a bloody riot thus ready to hand, with crowds of fanatics, Christian and Moslem, in direct contact, still no disturbances occurred.

By 11.30 a.m. on the 19th of April, 1873, and by the same time on the 22nd of April, 1875, we had been marshalled to a place in the Latin gallery, west of the Sepulchre, and looking down on the rotunda. Between the Chapel of the Sepulchre and the rotunda wall is a space some fifteen paces wide; a double line of Turkish soldiers kept open a narrow lane, in the middle of this space, round the tomb—a lane sufficiently wide for three men to walk abreast. On either side the crowd was packed against the rotunda wall, and against that of the Sepulchre chapel, and packed so thickly, that it seemed impossible for one single body more to be squeezed in. To say that you could walk on the heads of the crowd conveys but a poor idea of its compactness; the whole mass seemed welded into one body, and any movement of a single individual swayed the entire crowd, which seemed to tremble like a huge jelly.

But who can describe this wonderful scene? The sunlight came down from above on the north side where the Greeks were gathered, while on the south all was in shadow. The mellow grey of the marble was lit up, and a white centre of light was formed by the caps, shirts, and veils of the native Christians.

A narrow cross-lane was made at the fire-hole on the north side, and here first two, and in 1875 six herculean guardians, in jerseys and with handkerchiefs bound to their heads, kept watch—the only figures plainly distinguishable among the masses.