Rocky Ford enterprise., 1916-04-21

does not coincide with that of the western
churches, holy week in Jerusalem is celebrated
predominanty according TO the Greek calendar
the services of the other churches being repeated
on their own dates.
In all the Greek orthodox countries-Russia.
Roumania. Greece. Bulgaria, Serva, Montenegro
and large part of Austria Hungary-Easter is
celebrated with great fervor and devotion. The
Easter kiss Is well-known incident of these
celebrations.
Jerusalem is naturally full OF churches. monas-
teres hospices and hospitals of the various
creeds, and every of them at Easter brings
out its peculiar religious individuality. The
Latin church, for instance. whose establishment
in Jerusalem harks back to Godfrey dc Boulon
and his crusaders, has number of oriental
churches united to the Roman Catholic church.
Thus there the United Greeks. the United
Syrians, the United HISTORIANS. the United Ar
menians, the Maronites. all of whom celebrate
in their own tongue and SO add in their
ceremonies and garb picturesque distinctive
ness to the whole.
Then there are the Copts the Armenlans, the
Syrian Jacobites, the HISTORIANS, the Abyssnans
besides Greeks and Protestants The relative
standing of the various churches is in measure
expressed in the way they share the Is lamps
that burn in the Holy Sepulcher chapel which
is in the center of the stone that was rolled away
from Jesus grave by the angels. Five of these
lamps belong to the Latins. five to the Greeks
four to the Armenans and one to the Copts.
Away from the ecclesiastical ceremonial the
places where Lord spent his last days and
nights. OF these Gethsemane is the principal
goal, and here the difference in creed among the
many visitors is obterated by earnest and
quiet devotion which is unexpectedly free from
the emotional.
Another figure has prominent place in Easter
celebrations in Jerusalem: that of Moses. whose
liberation of the Jewish people from the yoke of
Egypt fs commemorated in the ancient Hebrew
paschal feast.
There is a very little known Mohamrledan
celebration which. though no longer so general az
formerly is still most interesting To
the Mohammedan, 1t must be remembered. Jeru-
salem is { holy city, like Mecca and Medina, and
there is saying among Arabs, Syria is the
blessed county, Palestine the holy land and Js-
rusalem, the holy city, is the holy of holies."
Native Mohammedans and pilgrims make up
a procession and issue from the Sitti Myriam
gate They are Joined by throngs of their breth-
rem from the neghboring villages, and, amid the
widest enthusiasm, with standards being borne
aloft and to the typical Arab music of drum and
fife the pilgrimage proceeds in the direction OF
the Dead sea.
As the Arabs claim common descent with the
Jews from Abraham, the Holy Land holds ira
ditions equally sacred to them. Jerusalem is
second only to Mecca in sanctity because it con-
tains according to tradition, the rock of Abra-
hams sacrifice, over which the famed mosque Of
Omar is built The Arab pilgrimage to the burial
place of Moses recalls the similar one to the tomb
of Noah, near the ruins OF Baalpek snort us
tance from Damascus.
In cosmoro,;tan charm Easter in Constantinople
almost equals that found in Jerusalem The capital
of the Turkish empire rs of course in itself highly
cosmoDolitan; and there is no other city in the
world where so many languages are heard in the
streets not bv foreigners. but by the variegated
native population The background here is not
Jewish and Mohammedan. as in Jerusalem, but
Mohammedan and Christian. with a strong tinge
of Spanish Jewry.