The Patriarch has entered the Sepulchre, and the fire is expected from heaven. No one seems to suspect that it comes from his matches, and the scratching, if there be any, is not heard. It appears to be all dark within the walls of the Sepulchre. Suddenly there is a great shout. A faint light shines out through the holes. The soldiers struggle to keep the crowd back. Men with whips push this way and that, making roads through the mass which the soldiers try to keep clear. The priests stand at the holes in the walls, and great bunches of candles are passed in. They are handed out lighted, and fleet runners seize them and dash to the various chapels. The Copt chapel at the back of the Sepulchre flames with lights, and in less time than it takes for me to write this sentence, the whole of the mass below me is a blaze of fire. Every man, woman, and child holds a lighted candle, and many are hauled up by strings from one gallery to the other. A priest creeps along the roof of the chapel of the Sepulchre. He lights the hundreds of lamps and candles upon its edges; and as I look over it I see that the Greek chapel beyond now blazes with thousands of coloured lights. The lamps over the whole of the great church are burning. The smoke comes up in great clouds, and the air is perceptibly warmer.
It is just seven minutes by my watch since the first candle was lighted, and in fifteen minutes the sacred fire will be all over Jerusalem.
Ready-mades have not yet arrived in the Near East. Jerusalem tailors sit at the doors of their tiny dark shops on ledges two feet above the street level. Customers must stand outside to bargain and be measured
The Greek Church has the finest collection of religious paintings in all Jerusalem. This has long been the richest and most powerful of the Christian sects in the Holy City and has roused much antagonism in the other churches
CHAPTER XIV
A TALK WITH THE GREEK PATRIARCH
I have just had an audience with one of the chief religious functionaries of the oriental world. The Patriarch of Jerusalem is first in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and as the head of the Greek Church in Syria, Palestine, and Arabia, he is the pope of the East. Most of the people of Russia belong to what was once a part of the Greek Church, and it has other millions of members in Greece, Turkey, and Asia Minor. As a result of immigration, there are also hundreds of Greek churches in the United States. It is the most powerful and the richest church of all the denominations represented in Jerusalem.
There is no king in the world who appears in such splendour upon state occasions as the Patriarch of Jerusalem. He wears cloth of gold and his great hat is covered with magnificent diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. The bishops who march with him have crosses of diamonds hanging about their necks, and their dresses are of gold and silver brocade. The mitre and other church insignia are of solid gold and silver. In the treasury of the Greek Church here there are jewels which would make the treasures of many a palace seem commonplace, for the rich men and the kings of the world have for generations been giving to this collection, thinking that in so doing they have been buying their way into heaven.