Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-11-06

their fanatical songs and denouncing each
other. One of their cries is: This is the
tomb of our Lord" Another is, God
help the sultan" and a third, "Oh, Jews:
AS they go the Greeks jostle the Ar
menians and the Abyssinians bump
against the Latins. Not long since the
followers of one sect set fire to some
a grotto of the church by the followers
of another sect. A fire occurred. the
church was filled with smoke and it mar
rowly escaped being burned.
The Greeks Of Palestine claim that they
have the right, under the new Turkish
constitution, to all the churches. con-
vents and monasteries belonging to their
church in the Holy Land. They demand
that the money changers, as they call the
foreign priests. be whipped out of the
grims be applied to the building of hos
pitfalls, old age homes and schools for
their children. This movement is not
confined to Jerusalem, but it extends
throughout Palestine, and it has the ap-
prevail Of the best element of the COM
munities There are altogether about
6oOCO native Greeks here. and they have
recently had meetings attended by dele
gates from their colonies living in Jaffa.
Nablous. Liberals and Bethlehem. They
have. l understand demanded that the
patriarch resign. and have sent word to
the sultan that they will not serve under
him.
We have so few Greek Christians in the
United States that it is hard for us to ap-
preciate what the Greek Church means.
1t Is one of the strong churches of the
world. 1t has altogether about 100, 600 600
members. which is more than one-fifth of
all the Christians on earth and more than
two-thirds as many as all the Protestants
L have before me the latest statistics of
religious denominations. There are in the
world 23O.OO0Oo0 Roman Catholics. about
10,OOO.OOO Protestants, 1O0O0O,OOO Greek
Christians. 100000 who belong to the
Church of Abyssinia and about 1, 100 900
Armenians. The sum total of Christians
is less than 800 900, 900 and less than one
third of the population of the world.
On the other hand, there are 256 OOO 900
Chinese who worship Confucius, 1870, OOO.-
0GO Hindoos. 176.O0O,0O0 Mohammedans
and 147.COO,OOO Buddhists. Those who be-
lieve in the various other religions are
fewer
During my stay here have had an in.
terview with the patriarch of the Greek
Church. He Is the Pope of this part OF
the world as far as that denomination is
concerned. and he controls the vast pos
sessions owned by the Greeks In the Holy
Land. l am told that the income of the
church is something like 81 100000 a year
and that the greater part of this fund is
administered by him. 1 have met the
Pope at Rome, but his holiness does not
appear in such splendor as does the Pa
triarch of Jerusalem The patriarch
comes out upon state occasions in hat
and gown. decorated with diamonds. en-
eralds and rubies His clothes are of
woven gold and silver. and the bishops
who march with him have crosses of dia-
monds which hang from their necks. and
they are gowned in gold and silver bro
cade.
One Of the queerest sights of the world
is to see his beatitude, as the patriarch
is called. going through the ceremony of
washing the feet of the twelve apostles
in front of the Church of the Holy Sepul-
cher This he does every year. He ap-
pears dressed as I have described. but be-
fore going through the humble ceremony
of washing the feet of the bishops who
have been. picked out to represent the
apostles he takes off his grand gown of
woven gold and lays aside his domed hat,
which is incrusted with jewels.
AS he does SO his long hair falls to his
waist, and he stands forth in plain sight
of his people clad in a long robe OF
cream-colored silk crepe, which is bound
in at the waist with a golden white gir-
die He now takes Turkish bath towel
which he wraps around his loins. and
then. STOPPING over. he pours some water
from golden pitcher into basin OF