Jerusalem is the “City of Peace,” but no city on earth has such a tumult of devotion, such a confusion of worship. In many ways it is essential that there should be all of the great substantial hospices, capable of sheltering and caring for the multitude of pilgrims who still, as in the ancient days, come from afar to worship in Jerusalem. They come from every nation in Europe, mostly in comparative poverty, making their toilsome way by personal exertion and sacrifice. The roads leading from seaports are thronged with pilgrims, trudging their dusty way, sleeping beside the highway or in rude shelters erected for them, all with their faces set steadfastly toward Jerusalem. For these there must be rest and shelter and food, for which reason in the Holy City, and at neighboring shrines huge caravansaries are sustained by the various national churches. More elaborate buildings, like modern hotels, exist for those who come upon a pious pilgrimage with ample means.
Schools exist for the young, taught by monks and nuns. There are communities of pious widows, whose wealth has erected for them pleasant homes in the Holy City. There are colonies—Protestant, Jewish, Catholic—actuated by some idea, often chimerical, sometimes simple and tinged with pure devotion. The members live as a religious family, each doing some share of labor, and enjoying some share of the result. There are also modern churches, magnificent ones, built within a decade or two, either as memorials, or for some missionary purpose. The Jewish community is constantly increasing, many of them looking for the speedy coming of their Messiah, and most of them brought hither by benevolent schemes for the colonization of Palestine by its ancient people. Over all this jumble of things ancient and modern floats the crescent flag; and above, on the height of Mt. Moriah, stands the marvelous mosque, where the Moslem, bows himself toward Mecca, and worships his God.
During my stay in Jerusalem it occurred to me that it would be interesting to seek out the various heads of all these various creeds. Fortune was kind, for sooner or later I found them all, and bore away photographs showing the faces of a unique set of Lords Spiritual, probably the most varied in belief and personality to be found in the world. Together they stand for the Christian history of twenty centuries; and in a city of probably sixty thousand souls, they all have a following, and play a part in its life.
Eldest in occupancy, and claiming priority from the fact that they are the descendants of those who listened to the teaching of the Apostles themselves, are the Syrians, the ancient stock of Palestine. They are few in number, but possess the ancient Convent of St. Mark, and the tombs of Nicodemus and of Joseph of Arimathea. They are ruled by His Beatitude Abighatios II, the Syrian Patriarch of Jerusalem.
The Greek Church rests its claim to authority upon the fact that Constantine, the first Christian emperor, gave Rome the go-by when his victory over Licinius made him master of the empire, and built his capital on the Bosphorus, calling it Constantinople. The later Greek (in which the New Testament was written) was the language of the Eastern Empire. During the early centuries the language and the learning of the Christian Church was Greek, and the great fathers and teachers of the early centuries were theirs. St. Helena, Constantine’s mother, discovered, so tradition says, the true cross, and the cavity from which it was taken is reverently shown to-day, hard by the sepulcher. Most of the sacred places owe their preservation and their defense to the Greeks, who are far in advance of all other Christian sects in their Holy Land possessions and influence.
The Greek Patriarch, His Beatitude Damianos, is a grave, dignified man of great learning. Fourteen bishops are subject to him, and they control twenty-one monasteries within and about Jerusalem. The superior of the Holy Sepulcher, Monseigneur Optimus Patlafeki, ranks next to the Patriarch. He is Lord Chancellor to the Greek Patriarch, and administrator of the vast wealth (both that which daily comes from gifts and fees, and the collection of rentals), invested in real estate and buildings. A shrewd and careful diplomat, he stands close to the powers that be in the rule of the Holy City. He and the venerable Patriarch alone know what treasure the Greek Church possesses.
It is a peculiar fact that the Greeks form but a small part of the Greek Church, or, more properly, of the Holy Orthodox Church. Counting all the Slavonic peoples who belong to the orthodox, still a full four fifths are Russian. The conversion of the mighty empire of the north came as late as A.D. 989, when Vladimir married the sister of the Emperor Basil, and chose the Greek in preference to the Roman form of religion. The people were baptized almost as a nation, and no other nation has remained more loyal to the faith. To-day more pilgrims come to Jerusalem from the land of the Czar than from any other nation. Literally by shiploads, in caravans of hundreds, they come to worship at the holy places. There are many large and spacious establishments where the pilgrims are sheltered, and their management and operations require the oversight of a capable man. The Holy Synod therefore maintains an Archimandrite, who, without interfering in the least with the Patriarch, looks after the detail of things Russian, and a capable man is His Excellency Monseigneur Leonidouff.
MUSA EFFENDI SHABIK, MOSLEM GRAND CADI OF JERUSALEM
The Latins, whose Hospice is one of the most imposing, and who have built churches, monasteries, convents, schools, and a magnificent modern hospital, number about three thousand, and have for their patriarch, His Excellency Monseigneur Philippe Camassei, one of the most learned of all the throng of dignitaries. The Latins are the natural opponents of the Greeks, and since the anathemas exchanged in the year 1054, each sect has claimed independent authority and priority. Nowhere else is the great schism between the East and the West so evident as in Jerusalem.