The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1916-04-22

does coincide with that OF the western
churches, holy week IN Jerusalem is celebrated
predomnantly according to the Greek calendar.
the services of the other churches being repeated
their own dates
In all the Greek orthodox countries-Russia
Roumanfa, Greece, Bulgaria, Servia Montenegro,
and large part of Australia ngary-Easte is
celebrated with great fervor and devotion. The
Easter kiss is a wellknown incident of these
celebrations
Jerusalem is naturally full of churches monas-
teries, .hospices and hospitals OF the various
creeds, and every of them at Easter brings
out its own peculiar religious individuality. The
Latin church. for instance, whose establishment
in Jerusalem harks back to Godfrey de BouilIon
and his crusaders, has a number of oriental
churches united to the Roman Catholic church.
Thus there the United Creeks the United
Syrians, the United HISTORIANS, the United Ar
menians. the Marontes, all of whom celebrate
mass in their own tongue and add in their
ceremonies and garb a picturesque distinctive
to the whole.
Then there are the Copts, the Armenians the
Syrian Jacobites. the HISTORIANS the Abyssinianss
besides Greeks and Protestants. The relative
standing of the various churches is in a 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 rolled away
from Jesus grave by the angels Five of these
lamps belong to the Latins, five to the Greeks
four to the Armenians and to the Copts.
Away from the ecclesiastical ceremonial the
pilgrim in Easter time seeks the traditional
places where our 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 obIiterated 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 is commemorated in the ancient Hebrew
paschal feast.
There is a very little known Mohammedan
celebration which. though no longer so general as
formerly, is still a most interesting one. To
the Mohammedan it must be remembered, Jeru-
salem is a holy city, like Mecca and Medina. and
there is a saying among Arabs. Syria is the
blessed county, Palestine the holy land and Je-
rusalem the holy city, is the holy of holies.'
Native Mohammedans and pilgrims make up
procession and issue from the Sitti Myriam
gate They are joined by throngs of their breth-
ren from the neighboring villages. and, amid the
widest enthusiasm, with standards being borne
aloft and to the typical Arab music OF drum and
ffe the pilgrimage proceeds in the direction OF
the Dead
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 sanetity because it
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, the ruins Of Baaibek, short dis
lance from Damascus.
In cosmopolitan charm Easter in Constantinople
almost equals that found in Jerusalem The capital
OF the Turkish empire is, OF course in itself highly
cosmopolitan; and there is other city in the
world where many languages are heard in the
streets not by foreigners. but by the variegated
native population. The background here is not
Mohammedan and Christian, with a strong tinge
OF Spanish JeEry.