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Ceremony |
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Source:
Picturesque Palestine, vol. 1, p. 22. |
Pilgrims of the Greek
Church Buying Candles
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No description of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre would be complete without
some notice of the ceremony of the “Holy Fire,” which, to the disgrace of
Eastern Christianity, is enacted at the present day . . . . The Chapel of the
Sepulchre rises from a dense mass of pilgrims, who sit or stand wedged round it;
whilst round them, and between another equally dense mass, which goes round the
walls of the church itself, a lane is formed by two lines, or rather two
circles, of Turkish soldiers stationed to keep order. For the spectacle which is
about to take place, nothing can be better suited than the form of the Rotunda,
giving galleries above for the spectators and an open space below for the
pilgrims and their festival. For the next two hours everything is tranquil.
Nothing indicates what is coming, except that two or three pilgrims who have got
close to the aperture keep their hands fixed in it with a clench never relaxed.
(Source:
Picturesque Palestine, vol. 1, p. 23.) |
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Ceremony of Holy Fire on Roof of Greek
Convent |
Source: Matson Collection. |
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It is about noon that this circular lane is
suddenly broken through by a tangled group
rushing violently round till they are caught
by one of the Turkish soldiers. It seems to be
the belief of the Arab Greeks that unless they
run round the Sepulchre a certain number of
times the fire will not come. . . . First
[one] sees these tangled masses of twenty,
thirty, fifty men, starting in a run, catching
hold of each other, lifting one of themselves
on their shoulders, sometimes on their heads,
and rushing on with him till he leaps off, and
some one else succeeds; some of them dressed
in sheep-skins, some almost naked, one usually
preceding the rest as a fugleman, clapping his
hands, to which they respond in like manner,
adding also wild howls, of which the chief
burden is ‘This is the tomb of Jesus Christ!
God save the Sultan!—Jesus Christ has redeemed
us!’ What begins in the lesser groups soon
grows in magnitude and extent, till at last
the whole of the circle between the troops is
continually occupied by race, a whirl, a
torrent of these wild figures, like the
witches’ Sabbath in ‘Faust,’ wheeling round
the Sepulchre. Gradually the frenzy subsides
or is checked, the course is cleared . . .
(Source:
Picturesque Palestine, vol. 1, pp. 23-25.) |
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Source: Matson Collection. |
Holy Sepulcher,
Orthodox Holy Fire
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. . . and out of the Greek Church on the east of the Rotunda a long procession
with embroidered banners, supplying in their ritual the want of images, begins
to defile round the Sepulchre. . . . In one small but compact band the Bishop of
Petra (who is on this occasion the Bishop of ‘the Fire,’ the representative of
the patriarch) is hurried to the Chapel of the Sepulchre, and the door is closed
behind him. The whole church is now one heaving sea of heads. . . . By the
aperture itself stands a priest to catch the fire; on each side of the lane
hundreds of bare arms are stretched out like the branches of a leafless
forest—like the branches of a forest quivering in some violent tempest . . . .
At last the moment comes. A bright flame as of burning wood appears inside the
hole—the light, as every educated Greek knows and acknowledges, kindled by the
bishop within—the light, as every pilgrim believes, of the descent of God
himself upon the Holy Tomb. Any distinct feature or incident is lost in the
universal whirl of excitement which envelops the church as slowly, gradually,
the fire spreads from hand to hand, from taper to taper, through that vast
multitude, till at last the whole edifice, from gallery to gallery and through
the area below, is one wide blaze of thousands of burning candles. (Source:
Picturesque Palestine,
vol. 1, pp. 25, 27-28.) |
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Church of Holy Sepulcher, pilgrims with
Holy Fire |
Source: Matson Collection. |
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It is now that, according to some accounts,
the bishop or patriarch is carried out of the
chapel in triumph, on the shoulders of the
people, in a fainting state, ‘to give the
impression that he is overcome by the glory of
the Almighty, from whose immediate presence he
is supposed to come.’ It is now that the great
rush to escape from the rolling smoke and
suffocating heat, and to carry the lighted
tapers into the streets and houses of
Jerusalem, through the one entrance to the
church, leads at times to the violent pressure
which in 1834 cost the lives of hundreds. For
a short time the pilgrims run to and fro,
rubbing the fire against their faces and
breasts to attest its supposed harmlessness.
But the wild enthusiasm terminates from the
moment that the fire is communicated; and
perhaps not the least extraordinary part of
the spectacle is the rapid and total
subsidence of a frenzy so intense . . . . Such
is the Greek Easter—the greatest moral
argument against the identity of the spot
which it professes to honour—stripped, indeed,
of some of its most revolting features, yet
still, considering the place, the time, and
the intention of the professed miracle,
probably the most offensive imposture to be
found in the world. (Source:
Picturesque Palestine, vol. 1, p.
28.) |
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See
Church of the Holy
Sepulcher,
Authenticity of the Holy Sepulcher,
History
of the Holy Sepulcher,
Holy Fire Ceremony,
or
Via Dolorosa |
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