Constantinople old and new

by H. G. Dwight

[2] J. C. Lawson: “Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion.”

I should not say that no trace survives, because Carnival is, of course, a lineal descendant of those ancient winter celebrations. As it exists in Constantinople, however, Carnival is for the most part but a pale copy of an Italian original, imported perhaps by the Venetians and Genoese. It affords none the less pleasure to those who participate in it, and curiosity of various colours to the members of the ruling race. I remember one night in Pera overhearing two venerable fezzes with regard to a troop of maskers that ran noisily by. “What is this play?” inquired one old gentleman, who evidently had never seen it before and who as evidently looked upon it with disapproval. “Eh,” replied the other, the initiated and the more indulgent old gentleman, “they pass the time!” The time they pass is divided differently than with us of the West. The second Sunday before Lent is called Apokreá and is the day of farewell to meat. Which for the religious it actually is, although the gaieties of Carnival are then at their height. The ensuing Sunday is called Cheese Sunday, because that amount of indulgence is permitted during the week preceding it. After Cheese Sunday, however, no man should touch cheese, milk, butter, oil, eggs, or even fish—though an exception is made in favour of caviar, out of which a delicious Lenten savoury is made. Lent begins not on the Wednesday but on the Monday, which is called Clean Monday. In fact the first week of Lent is called Clean Week. Houses are then swept and garnished and the fast is stricter than at any time save Holy Week. The very pious eat nothing at all during the first three days of Lent.

The dancing Epirotes

Clean Monday, nevertheless, is a great holiday. In Constantinople it is also called Tatavla Day, because every one goes out to Tatavla, a quarter bordering on open country between Shishli and Hass-kyöi. A somewhat similar custom prevails in Venice, where every one goes on Ash Wednesday to promenade on the ordinarily deserted quay of the Zattere. But no masks are seen on the Zattere on Ash Wednesday, whereas masks are the order of the day at Tatavla on Clean Monday. They are not so much the order of the day, however, as the progress of a traditional camel, each of whose legs is a man. It carries a load of charcoal and garlic, which are powerful talismans against evil, and it is led about by a picturesquely dressed camel driver whose face is daubed with blue. This simple form of masquerading, a common one at Tatavla, descends directly from the pagan Dionysia. Another picturesque feature of the day is the dancing by Epirotes—Greeks or Christian Albanians. Masquerading with these exiles consists in twisting a handkerchief about their heads in guise of a fillet and in putting on the black or white fustanella—with its accompanying accoutrements—of their native hills. They form rings in the middle of the crowd, which is kept back by one of their number called the Shepherd. Like the Christmas mummers of the Greek islands, he wears skins and has a big bronze sheep or camel bell fastened to some part of him. He also carries a staff to which is attached a bunch of garlic for good luck. He often wears a mask as well, or is otherwise disguised, and his clowneries give great amusement. In the meantime his companions join hands and dance around the ring to the tune of a pipe or a violin. The first two hold the ends of a handkerchief instead of joining hands, which enables the leader to go through more complicated evolutions. Sometimes he is preceded by one or two sword dancers, who know how to make the most of their hanging sleeves and pleated kilts. Some of these romantic young gentlemen are singularly handsome, which does not prepare one to learn that they are butchers’ boys.

The Greeks keep no mi-carême, as the Latins do. Their longer and severer fast continues unbroken till Easter morning—unless Annunciation Day happens to fall in Lent. Then they are allowed the indulgence of fish. Holy Week is with them Great Week. Services take place in the churches every night except Wednesday, and commemorate the events of Jerusalem in a more dramatic way than even in the Roman Church. The symbolic washing of the disciples’ feet, however, which takes place in Jerusalem on Holy Thursday, is not performed in Constantinople except by the Armenians. On Good, or Great, Friday a cenotaph is erected in the nave of each church, on which is laid an embroidery or some other representation of the crucifixion. Sculpture is not permitted in the Greek Church, although on this one occasion a statue has sometimes been seen. The faithful flock during the day to the cenotaph, where they kiss the embroidery and make some small donation. Each one receives from the acolyte in charge a jonquil or a hyacinth. This graceful custom is perhaps a relic of the Eleusinian Mysteries, which Easter superseded and with whose symbolism, celebrating as they did the myth of Demeter and Persephone, it has so much in common. Spring flowers, at all events, play a part at Easter quite different from our merely decorative use of them. Flower stands are almost as common at church doors as candle stands. For people also make the round of the icons in the churches, on Good Friday, lighting votive tapers here and there. The true use of the tapers, however, is after dark. Then a procession figuring the entombment of Christ issues from the church with the image of the cenotaph and makes the circuit of the court or, in purely Greek communities, of the surrounding streets, accompanied by a crowd of lighted candles. The image is finally taken to the holy table, where it remains for forty days.

An even more striking ceremony takes place on Saturday night. About midnight people begin to gather in the churches, which are aromatic with the flowering bay strewn on the floor. Every one carries a candle but none are lighted—not even before the icons. The service begins with antiphonal chanting. The ancient Byzantine music sounds stranger than ever in the dim light, sung by the black-robed priests with black veils over their tall black caps. Finally, the celebrant, in a purple cope of mourning, withdraws behind the iconostásion, the screen that in a Greek church divides the holy table from the chancel. As the chant proceeds candles are lighted in certain chandeliers. Then the door of the sanctuary is thrown open, revealing a blaze of light and colour within. The celebrant comes out in magnificent vestments, holding a lighted candle and saying: “Come to the light.” Those nearest him reach out their own tapers to take the sacred fire, and from them it is propagated in an incredibly short time through the entire church. In the meantime the priests march in procession out-of-doors, headed by a banner emblematic of the resurrection. And there, surrounded by the flickering lights of the congregation, the celebrant chants the triumphant resurrection hymn. At this point tradition demands that the populace should express their own sentiments by a volley of pistol-shots. But since the reactionary uprising of 1909, when soldiers took advantage of the Greek Easter to make such tragic use of their own arms, an attempt has been made in Constantinople to suppress this detail. I have been told that each shot is aimed at Judas. The unfaithful apostle, at all events, used to be burned in effigy on Good Friday at Therapia. And I have heard of other customs of a similar bearing.

The patriarchal church at Phanar is the most interesting place to see the ceremonies of Easter morning. They are not for every one to see, by reason of the smallness of the church. One must have a friend at court in order to obtain a ticket of admission. Even then one may miss, as I once did through ignorance, and perhaps through a lack of that persistence which should be the portion of the true tourist, certain characteristic scenes of the day. Thus I failed to witness the robing of the Patriarch by the prelates of his court. Neither did I get a photograph of them all marching in procession to the church, though I had moved heaven and earth—i. e., a bishop and an ambassador—for permission to do so. Nevertheless, I had an excellent view of the ceremony of the second resurrection, as the Easter morning vespers are called. The procession entered the church led by small boys in white and gold who carried a tall cross, two gilt exeptérigha on staves, symbolic of the six-winged cherubim, and lighted candles. After them came choristers singing. The men wore a species of fez entirely covered by its spread-out tassel. One carried an immense yellow candle in front of the officiating clergy, who marched two and two in rich brocaded chasubles. Their long beards gave them a dignity which is sometimes lacking to their Western brothers, while the tall black kalymáfhion, brimmed slightly at the top with a true Greek sense of outline, is certainly a more imposing head-dress than the biretta. The Patriarch came next, preceded and followed by a pair of acolytes carrying two and three lighted candles tied together with white rosettes. These candles symbolise the two natures of Christ and the Trinity; with them His Holiness is supposed to dispense his blessing. He wore magnificent vestments of white satin embroidered with blue and green and gold. A large diamond cross and other glittering objects hung about his neck. In his hand he carried a crosier of silver and gold and on his head he wore a domed crown-like mitre. It was surmounted by a cross of gold, around it were ornaments of enamel and seed pearls, and in the gold circlet of its base were set immense sapphires and other precious stones. The Patriarch was followed by members of the Russian embassy, of the Greek, Montenegrin, Roumanian, and Servian legations, and by the lay dignitaries of his own entourage, whose uniforms and decorations added what they could to the splendour of the occasion. These personages took their places in the body of the nave—standing, as is always the custom in the Greek Church—while the clergy went behind the screen of the sanctuary. The Patriarch, after swinging a silver censer through the church, took his place at the right of the chancel on a high canopied throne of carved wood inlaid with ivory. He made a wonderful picture there with his fine profile and long white beard and gorgeous vestments. On a lower and smaller throne at his right sat the Grand Logothete. The Grand Logothete happens at present to be a preternaturally small man, and time has greatly diminished his dignities. The glitter of his decorations, however, and the antiquity of his office make him what compensation they can. His office is an inheritance of Byzantine times, when he was a minister of state. Now he is the official representative of the Patriarch at the Sublime Porte and accompanies him to the Palace when His Holiness has audience of the Sultan.

No rite, I suppose, surpasses that of the Greek Church in splendour. The carved and gilded iconostasis, the icons set about with gold, the multitude of candles, precious lamps, and chandeliers, the rich vestments, the clouds of incense, make an overpowering appeal to the senses. To the Western eye, however, there is too much gilt and blaze for perfect taste, there are too many objects in proportion to the space they fill. And certainly to the Western ear the Byzantine chant, however interesting on account of its descent from the antique Greek modes, lacks the charm of the Gregorian or of the beautiful Russian choral. At a point of the service the Gospels were read by different voices in a number of different languages. I recognised Latin and Slavic among them. Finally, the Patriarch withdrew in the same state as he entered. On his way to his own apartments he paused on an open gallery and made an address to the crowd in the court that had been unable to get into the church. Then he held in the great saloon of his palace a levee of those who had been in the church, and each of them was presented with gaily decorated Easter eggs and with a cake called, curiously enough, by the Persian name of chörek—except that the Greeks mispronounce it tsouréki. These dainties are the universal evidence of the Greek Easter—these and the salutation “Christ is risen,” to which answer is made by lips the least sanctimonious: “In truth he is risen.” Holy Thursday is the traditional day for dyeing eggs. On Holy Saturday the Patriarch sends an ornamental basket of eggs and chörek to the Sultan. Chörek is like the Easter cake of northern Italy. It is a sort of big brioche made in three strands braided together.

Easter Monday is in some ways a greater feast than Easter itself. In Constantinople the Christian population is so large that when the Greeks and Armenians stop work their fellow citizens find it easy to follow suit. The Phanar is a favourite place of resort throughout the Easter holidays, an open space between the patriarchate and the Golden Horn being turned into a large and lively fair. The traditional place for the celebration of the day, however, is in the open spaces of the Taxim, on the heights of Pera. The old travellers all have a chapter about the festivities which used to take place there, and remnants of them may still be seen. The Armenians gather chiefly in a disused cemetery of their cult, where the tomb of a certain St. Kevork is honoured at this season and where peasants from Asia Minor may sometimes be seen dancing among the graves. A larger and noisier congregation assembles at the upper edge of the parade-ground across the street. Not a little colour is given to it by Greeks from the region of Trebizond, who sometimes are not Greeks at all, but Laz, and who often wear the hood of that mysterious people knotted around their heads. They have a strange dance which they continue hour after hour to the tune of a little violin hanging from the player’s hand. They hold each other’s fingers in the air, and as they dance they keep up a quivering in their thighs, which they vary by crouching to their heels and throwing out first one leg and then the other with a shout. An even more positive touch of colour is given to the scene by the Kürds. They set up a tent in front of which a space is partially enclosed by screens of the same material. I remember seeing one such canvas that was lined with a vivid yellow pattern on a red ground. There swarthy Kürds in gaily embroidered jackets or waistcoats gather to smoke, to drink tea, and to dance in their own more sedate way, while gipsies pipe unto them and pound a big drum. I once asked one of the dancers how it was that he, being no Christian, made merry at Easter time. “Eh,” he answered, “there is no work. Also, since the constitution we are all one, and if one nation rejoices, the others rejoice with it. Now all that remains,” he went on, “is that there should be no rich and no poor, and that we should all have money together.” Interesting as I found this socialistic opinion in the mouth of a Kürdish hamal, I could not help remembering how it had been put into execution in 1896, when the Kürds massacred the Armenian hamals and wrested from the survivors the profitable guild of the street porters. It was then that the Easter glory departed from the Taxim. But the place had already been overtaken by the growing city, while increasing facilities of communication now daily lengthen the radius of the holiday maker.