Author of “The Green Flag of the Prophet,” etc.
WITH PHOTOGRAPHS, COPYRIGHT, BY THE AUTHOR
THEY were changing the guard at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the sacred place for which the Crusaders marched and fought, the shrine toward which the feet of pious pilgrims have turned for nearly twenty centuries. It was done quietly, and with no feature to attract attention, or emphasize the shame that made a guard necessary. In a moment the old guard of six soldiers and the young Turkish officer had gone, and on a raised platform, just within the door, the new guard were making themselves comfortable, lighting their cigarettes, and chatting in low, soft voices.
I had asked the officer before the relief arrived if the guard was actually needed. “Not often,” he replied. “But one can never tell. In the last disturbance a monk was killed. I tell you true! I saw him lying there at the foot of the steps.”
He flicked the ash from his cigarette, and shrugged a very square pair of shoulders significantly.
“Killed!” I said, “why and how?”
“Monsieur wonders, but he does not know these people. Observe, Monsieur, that the stair beyond the door has eighteen steps. All but the lowest one belong to the Latins; the bottom one and the pavement belong to the Greeks. Each morning the steps must be swept. The Latins sweep down to the last one, and there they must leave the dirt, until the Greeks sweep it off and bear it away. Generally the two come together, and so the work is done. But on that fatal day, when the Latin had swept the dirt upon the lowest step, no Greek was there. So lest the dirt should blow back again where he had cleaned, he, little thinking, swept it off, and was bearing it away. Then came the Greek, and, seeing him, snatched both broom and basket from him, with upbraiding words. Their loud voices soon reached their fellows, and in a moment a score or more were pushing and wrestling across the pavement. Nor were good solid blows lacking. Somehow in the tumult a Greek monk was pushed over, and, falling against the edge of a stone step, broke his neck, and so died, while they all knelt and prayed for his soul. Since then there has been no actual trouble, but we keep a constant guard posted here at the door. I am of Islam, effendi—the faith of my fathers. We garrison the Tower of David.”
Multitudes of people were passing in and out of the venerable portal, singly and in groups, sometimes in companies. They surely must have come from the ends of the earth, young and old, rich and poor, pilgrim and tourist, to stand or kneel beside the holiest tomb in Christendom.
Just within the entrance is the Stone of Anointing, the ancient one covered by a more modern stone, worn smooth with the touch of countless lips. Above it hangs a row of lamps, of various shapes and colors, but always burning. These lamps offer a key to the strange conditions within this ancient fane, for part of them belong to the Armenians, part to the Latins, the rest to the Greeks and the Copts.
Wherever you go, you find the same confusing conflict over jealously guarded rights, for every sect of Oriental Christendom is represented and claims some part in the ownership of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Not the church alone, but the whole city, and its environs, including Bethlehem, Bethany, Gethsemane, and every real or fabled spot of sanctity, are in the guardianship of one or the other of the many creeds.