[Illustration: Ready-mades have not yet arrived in the Near East. Jerusalem tailors sit at the doors of their tiny dark shops on ledges two feet above the street level. Customers must stand outside to bargain and be measured] [Illustration: The Greek Church has the finest collection of religious paintings in all Jerusalem. This has long been the richest and most powerful of the Christian sects in the Holy City and has roused much antagonism in the other churches] CHAPTER XIV A TALK WITH THE GREEK PATRIARCH I have just had an audience with one of the chief religious functionaries of the oriental world. The Patriarch of Jerusalem is first in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and as the head of the Greek Church in Syria, Palestine, and Arabia, he is the pope of the East. Most of the people of Russia belong to what was once a part of the Greek Church, and it has other millions of members in Greece, Turkey, and Asia Minor. As a result of immigration, there are also hundreds of Greek churches in the United States. It is the most powerful and the richest church of all the denominations represented in Jerusalem. There is no king in the world who appears in such splendour upon state occasions as the Patriarch of Jerusalem. He wears cloth of gold and his great hat is covered with magnificent diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. The bishops who march with him have crosses of diamonds hanging about their necks, and their dresses are of gold and silver brocade. The mitre and other church insignia are of solid gold and silver. In the treasury of the Greek Church here there are jewels which would make the treasures of many a palace seem commonplace, for the rich men and the kings of the world have for generations been giving to this collection, thinking that in so doing they have been buying their way into heaven.