The People Thus
Alleged To Have Concurred In The Great Schism Of The Eastern Empire
Are Never, I Believe, Within
The walls of a church, or even of any
building at all, except upon this occasion of Easter; and as
They
then never fail to find a row of some kind going on by the side of
the sepulchre, they fancy, it seems, that the ceremonies there
enacted are funeral games of a martial character, held in honour of
a deceased chieftain, and that a Christian festival is a peculiar
kind of battle, fought between walls, and without cavalry. It does
not appear, however, that these men are guilty of any ferocious
acts, or that they attempt to commit depredations. The charge
against them is merely that by their way of applauding the
performance, by their horrible cries and frightful gestures, they
destroy the solemnity of divine service, and upon this ground the
Franciscans obtained a firman for the exclusion of such tumultuous
worshippers. The Greeks, however, did not choose to lose the aid
of their wild converts merely because they were a little backward
in their religious education, and they therefore persuaded them to
defy the firman by entering the city en masse and overawing their
enemies. The Franciscans, as well as the Government authorities,
were obliged to give way, and the Arabs triumphantly marched into
the church. The festival, however, must have seemed to them rather
flat, for although there may have been some "casualties" in the way
of eyes black and noses bloody, and women "missing," there was no
return of "killed."
Formerly the Latin Catholics concurred in acknowledging (but not, I
hope, in working) the annual miracle of the heavenly fire, but they
have for many years withdrawn their countenance from this
exhibition, and they now repudiate it as a trick of the Greek
Church. Thus of course the violence of feeling with which the
rival Churches meet at the Holy Sepulchre on Easter Saturday is
greatly increased, and a disturbance of some kind is certain. In
the year I speak of, though no lives were lost, there was, as it
seems, a tough struggle in the church. I was amused at hearing of
a taunt that was thrown that day upon an English traveller. He had
taken his station in a convenient part of the church, and was no
doubt displaying that peculiar air of serenity and gratification
with which an English gentleman usually looks on at a row, when one
of the Franciscans came by, all reeking from the fight, and was so
disgusted at the coolness and placid contentment of the Englishman
(who was a guest at the convent), that he forgot his monkish
humility as well as the duties of hospitality, and plainly said,
"You sleep under our roof, you eat our bread, you drink our wine,
and then when Easter Saturday comes you don't fight for us!"
Yet these rival Churches go on quietly enough till their blood is
up. The terms on which they live remind one of the peculiar
relation subsisting at Cambridge between "town and gown."
These contests and disturbances certainly do not originate with the
lay-pilgrims, the great body of whom are, as I believe, quiet and
inoffensive people.
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