The City of the Sultan; and Domestic Manners of the Turks, in 1836, Vol. 1 (of 2)Pardoe, Miss (Julia)
History
The City of the Sultan; and Domestic Manners of the Turks, in 1836, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Pardoe, Miss (Julia)
Turkey -- Social life and customs
The appearance of a Greek church differs from those of the Roman
Catholics, infinitely more than do the several religions. The Sanctuary,
in the midst of which stands the High Altar, is separated from the
church by a close screen; and there are neither aisles nor side chapels.
The whole edifice is lighted by chandeliers suspended from the ceiling
in three straight lines, reaching from the Sanctuary to the principal
entrance: and the screen is ornamented with the effigies of saints,
hardly and drily painted; which frequently figure in such sort in their
temples as thoroughly to exonerate them from the imputation of making to
themselves the “likeness of anything in Heaven, or on earth, or in the
waters under the earth.” Nor is this all; for the pious being to the
full as prone to make votive offerings to their favourite saints as any
Catholic in Spain or Portugal, the staring, wooden pictures are
furthermore decorated with gold and silver hands, eyes, ears, or noses,
as the case may be; which gives them so comical an effect that the
gravest person cannot contemplate them without a smile.
The centre of the screen is closed by a curtain above the low double
door opening into the church—the veil shrouding from the eyes of the
congregation “the holy of holies,” according to the old Jewish use. On
the present occasion, the curtain was drawn back, and the High Priest
was robing himself in front of the altar.
The Patriarch’s throne was on the right hand, and immediately opposite
to it was the pulpit; while at the bottom of the church on each side of
the door stood two enormous chests of polished wood, containing the
church plate and properties. In the centre of the marble floor was
placed the boast and treasure of the chapel—a stone which once formed
part of the Sepulchre of the Saviour, affirmed to have been brought from
the Holy Land, and ultimately deposited here. The crush towards this
point was enormous: the dense crowd shoving and elbowing each other most
determinedly to secure an approach; which, when they had effected it,
enabled them to cross themselves, according to the rite of their
church, seven times successively with a rapidity only to be acquired by
long practice, and to kiss each extremity of the stone, leaving a piece
of money in the salver of the attendant priest.
Huge wax candles of at least seven inches in diameter were burning in
front of the Sanctuary, and on the canopy covering the Sepulchre; and
the glare fell upon a dense crowd of heads, some shaven close, some
decorated with a single long tress of hair hanging from the summit; some
half-shaved, as though a platter had been adjusted to the cranium of the
individual, and that the barber had operated round its edges; and others
with long dishevelled elf-locks falling about their shoulders—the
effect was perfectly ludicrous!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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