The night before Christmas in Jerusalem in 1887 (from the impressions of an eyewitness)

It is a well-known fact that in the holy places in Jerusalem there has long been continuous hostility between people of different faiths, which from time to time breaks out in the form of clashes, sometimes even with a bloody epilogue. As a result of these extremely strained conditions of religious life of different faiths and nationalities, holy places, venerated shrines of the entire Christian World - the Holy Sepulcher, Golgotha, the Church of the Resurrection, the Den of Christ, etc. - are kept in such desolation and neglect that a person who first appears in Jerusalem is left with a striking, joylessly heavy impression. It is necessary, however, a lot of resourcefulness and resourcefulness on the part of those to whom Providence has entrusted the protection of these shrines dear to the entire Christian World, so that they are restored and maintained from time to time, even in that neglected and inconspicuous form in which most of them appear to the eyes of the admirers who have arrived here with the aim of pouring out their heartfelt cries in fervent tearful prayer. Here is a factual illustration of these strained relations between different faiths in Jerusalem. In the summer of 1887, one of the richest Moscow merchants, the owner of an iron foundry, visited Jerusalem as a fan. Surveying the holy places of Jerusalem and its environs and having visited the roof of the Church of the Resurrection, he could not help but pay attention with his experienced eye to the half-decayed wooden cross erected on the dome of this famous church - the keeper of the most precious Christian relics: the Holy Sepulcher, Golgotha, the place where the Holy Cross was found, etc. The heart of a Muscovite, a lover of the beauty and splendor of churches, shuddered with pity at the sight of this miserable ruin, and he immediately expressed a desire before the Jerusalem Patriarch Nicodemus, now retired, to make a more durable and elegant cross for this dome at his own factory in Moscow and send it as a personal donation to replace the old wooden cross. This precious sacrifice was accepted by the patriarch with delight and deep gratitude. The donor did not hesitate to fulfill his promise. In September 1887 a massive artistically cast iron cross, drawn through fire, had already been received in Jerusalem. It remained to fulfill the will of the donor, but then the usual delays, delays, and all sorts of unforeseen difficulties began in the East and in particular in Jerusalem on the part of local civil authorities and representatives of heterodox faiths, who always and in everything wanted to see a violation of the notorious “status quo.” Patriarch Nicodemus, instead of the dome where it was intended, had to, willy-nilly, temporarily put the mentioned cross in a storage room under lock and key. For permission to replace the old cross on the dome of the Church of the Resurrection with a donated new one, His Beatitude Nicodemus first turned to the local governor Rauf Pasha. But the latter, fearing displeasure from Catholics and Armenians, did not dare to give the required permission, and in turn asked for instructions from Constantinople, where, from the Turkish point of view, they did not attach much importance to this unimportant matter and shelved the paper. A month passed, then another, and there was no response from Constantinople. The donor of the cross from Moscow sent letter after letter to the patriarchy, inquiring about the time of erecting the cross on the dome of the Church of the Resurrection, and the patriarch, meanwhile, could not move his finger on this matter, without receiving the expected permission. To speed up the receipt of an answer from Constantinople, Patriarch Nicodemus repeated his request to the pasha, and, in order to eliminate any kind of suspicion about the nationality of the donor, he even neglected pious deception, declaring that the cross was a sacrifice of Trieste Greek merchants. But this request was also unsuccessful. The great holiday of the Nativity of Christ was approaching. The donor, a Muscovite, expressed his persistent desire to see his cross on the dome of the Church of the Resurrection for this holiday. In his soul, His Beatitude Patriarch Nicodemus fully shared the desire of the pious zealot for the splendor of the Christian church, but he did not dare to openly, without the permission of the civil authorities, in broad daylight, erect it on the dome, fearing popular unrest and clashes with military force. It was necessary to wait for an opportune moment, to act without official permission, at one’s own risk. The eve, or rather the night before the Nativity of Christ, was recognized as such a moment, and the gifted Russian craftsmen among the admirers willingly agreed to carry out the cunning plan conceived by the patriarch to erect a cross on the dome of the Church of the Resurrection in that one night. On December 24, having made the necessary preliminary orders, Patriarch Nicodemus, according to long-established custom, accompanied by numerous synodal bishops, clergy and kavas, left Jerusalem early in the morning and went to Bethlehem to celebrate the Feast of the Nativity of Christ here with a solemn service. Many pilgrims gather in Jerusalem for this day from different parts of the world, and local Christians leave St. city ​​and also rush to Bethlehem to admire the “fantasies” performed by the Arab sheikhs on their zealous horses, when meeting the patriarch and his retinue, the Russian consul and other honored guests heading to Bethlehem, and to spend Christmas night in St. Nativity scene. Noisy and bustling Jerusalem then becomes empty. Its streets remain almost deserted until the evening of the first day of the holiday. Of the Greek Holy Sepulcher clergy, only the ephimerii remain, that is, the next clergy to perform the festive service in the Church of the Resurrection and in Gethsemane. There are very few worshipers who want to spend this saving night in holy places, mainly from permanent residents of Jerusalem. Exactly at seven o'clock in the evening, according to custom, the massive iron doors of the Church of the Resurrection slammed shut, after preliminary knocking on the bell three times to convene those wishing to spend the night in the holy places, and the Turkish custodians closed this door with heavy locks and bolts, entrusting, according to the accepted custom, the storage of the keys until the morning to the next ephemerias of the three main religions that own Holy Sepulcher shrines. As is known, no one is allowed to leave the church or enter it until the morning without the consent of the abbots of the Orthodox, Catholic and Armenian confessions to open the church gates. But as soon as the doors of the church were closed that night and the pilgrims imprisoned in it began to settle down for a prayer vigil, as if on the roof of the Church of the Resurrection, along pre-prepared stairs, the Russian craftsmen dragged a massive cross onto the dome and hastily began to work in order to finish it by the morning. The running and noise of the craftsmen on the dome of the church, the frequent and heavy blows of the hammers caused confusion among the Franciscans who were performing the usual canon in the basilica adjacent to the Church of the Resurrection. But, being trapped behind the heavy locked doors of the church, they could not do anything. An appeal to the elderly Greek Archimandrite Seraphim for a solution to their perplexity did not reassure them at all, since the elder abbot excused himself by being completely ignorant of what was happening on the roof of the church. The Armenians, in view of their disagreements with the Catholics, laughed at their futile fuss and bustle, not without gloating, fully sympathizing with the cunning plan of the Greeks. In the end, the Catholic monks realized their powerlessness and patiently began to wait for the morning to come. Under the hasty blows of the hammers of the Russian masters, who were in a hurry to finish the holy work before the joyful dawn of the great Christian holiday morning, with hidden anger towards the insidious schismatics, the sad Franciscans began to finish reading the interrupted morning canon, and then celebrated Mass at the Holy Sepulchre. In the morning, when the doors of the Church of the Resurrection were opened by the Turkish custodians, the Franciscan monks, shocked by the unexpected events of the night they had experienced, upon leaving the church, to their deep chagrin and even horror, saw on the dome of the Church of the Resurrection a majestic cross, shining brightly with its gilding at the first rays of the sun rising over Jerusalem. They immediately went to their patriarchate to inform the representative of the Catholic Church about the sad events of the previous night and what Christmas gift the cunning Greeks had given them. The Catholic Patriarch immediately wrote a protest about the violation of the “status quo” by the Greeks to the French Consul General in Jerusalem, Mr. Ledoux, as the protector and patron of Catholics in Jerusalem, and this latter to Governor Rauf Pasha and the Greek Patriarch Nicodemus in Bethlehem, at the same time he telegraphed the French Ambassador in Constantinople. Church of the Resurrection (with a dome over the Catholicos). The protest of Catholics through the French consul Ledoux by 10 o'clock in the morning became known to the Patriarch of Jerusalem and the acting Russian consul A.P. Belyaev, who was in Bethlehem with a large retinue. Immediately, without waiting for the ceremonial dinner on the occasion of the holiday, A.II. Belyaev left Bethlehem and hurried by telegraph to report the Jerusalem event to the Russian ambassador in Constantinople A. I. Nelidov, as the defender of the interests of Orthodoxy in the East. Rauf Pasha, having received the protest of the Catholics, in turn telegraphed the event to the Porte. The next day, the Porte gave the strictest order to the governor of Jerusalem to immediately remove the cross from the dome of the Church of the Resurrection. At the same time, it became known that A.I. Nelidov evasively responded to the Porte’s request about the Jerusalem event, stating that the incident lay on the conscience of Patriarch Nicodemus, who alone could answer for him and before the Porte. The strict order of the Porte and the evasive answer of the Russian ambassador in Constantinople initially stunned the Patriarch of Jerusalem, who was faced with the sad necessity of removing the erected cross from the dome with his own hands in the light of day. But the determination and resourcefulness of His Beatitude Nicodemus, who returned from Bethlehem on the evening of December 25, saved the Greek Church of Jerusalem and the entire Orthodox World from shameful humiliation before the Catholics. Knowing, from personal experience, the slowness and caution of the Turkish authorities in matters of international politics, His Beatitude Nicodemus, when Governor Rauf Pasha came to him with a formidable dispatch from the Grand Vizier - to immediately remove the gilded metal cross placed on the dome of the Church of the Resurrection, boldly and energetically replied: “While the cross was under lock and key in my patriarchate, I could freely dispose of it as my personal property, but now that it stands on the dome of the Church of the Resurrection, in full view of everyone, it no longer belongs to me, but is the property of the entire Orthodox world. The cross stands in full view of everyone and I have no guards to guard it, but you, Your Excellency, have an army at your disposal, send your soldiers to the dome and let them remove from there the cross that is unpleasant to you and some other inhabitants of Jerusalem. I, as a loyal subject of His Majesty the Sultan, do not dare to prevent you from doing this.” Of course, the experienced diplomat Rauf Pasha did not dare to take on such a risky business and left the formidable order from Constantinople unfulfilled, fearing unrest among the Orthodox, who were keenly interested in the outcome of this incident. Rauf Pasha limited himself to bringing the patriarch's answer to the attention of the Grand Vizier. At the same time, Patriarch Nicodemus and the Russian consulate directed all efforts to explain in Constantinople - the first to the Grand Vizier, and the latter to the Russian ambassador - that the protest of the Catholics was unfounded, and that there was no violation of the notorious “status quo” on the part of the Greeks in this case. In both reports, the main idea was that the Greeks acted legally and on the basis of the same “status quo” that the Catholics also refer to. According to the “status quo”, all three dominant religions know only those sacred places that constitute the undivided and common property of Orthodox, Armenians and Catholics, such as, for example, the Holy Sepulcher, Golgotha, the place of the discovery of the Cross, etc., in which all amendments and alterations are made without fail under the condition of consultation and agreement of all these confessions. But those buildings and structures that constitute the inalienable property of one particular religion are in all respects exclusively dependent on their owners, and therefore, the amendments and decorations of these places depend entirely on their legal owners. Any outside interference of persons of a different religion in such enterprises and affairs is an illegal encroachment on someone else’s property. In particular, the Church of the Resurrection, although it is not located in the general system of complex holy tomb buildings, has from time immemorial been the undivided inalienable property of the Orthodox Greeks, and therefore they are free within its boundaries to do everything that they recognize as necessary and useful for beauty, as long as these crafts do not threaten the integrity and inviolability of adjacent buildings and possessions of other nationalities and religions dominating the holy places. Other religions did not have and should not have any connection to the Church of the Resurrection. Consequently, by erecting a cross on the dome of the Church of the Resurrection (this dome should not be confused with the dome over the edicule of the Holy Sepulcher), the Greek patriarch did not commit any lawless act, did not encroach on the inviolability of the existing “status quo”, and the protests of Catholics in this case not only do not deserve serious attention from the powers that be, but are a direct encroachment on the rights of the Orthodox, on the fact that never belonged to the Latins. The Russian consulate in its report to Ambassador A.I. Nelidov also tried more carefully to highlight the dangerous principle that Catholics have recently begun to persistently pursue in their disputes over the right of ownership of holy places with Orthodox Christians and Armenians, as shown by recent disputes over Galilee, the seizure of stables in Bethlehem, etc., i.e., to move from an indivisible right to a gradual generalization. In other words, Catholics, having ceased to respect the property rights of one or another religion in holy places, are trying, through interference and constant protests for the most empty and unfounded reasons, to make an indivisible property common to all the dominant religion in holy places, while they, of course, do not include here the places that are in their exclusive possession; In this way they limit to a minimum the property rights of other religions in their domains, while they themselves freely express their tendentious aspirations. A detailed report from Jerusalem from our consulate explaining the entire groundlessness of the Catholics' claims against the Greeks had the desired effect in Constantinople. Russian Ambassador A.I. Nelidov, who at first reacted coldly to the fact that happened in Jerusalem, after the consular explanations, warmly took the side of the patriarch and made the necessary explanations to the Porte. The latter, wanting to please the French ambassador, who supported the protest of the Catholics, began to ask the Patriarch of Jerusalem to remove the cross from the dome of the Church of the Resurrection only for a while, to calm the agitated Latins, promising to give official permission to erect the cross in the shortest possible time. But Patriarch Nicodemus did not make concessions, fearing an explosion of indignation on the part of the Orthodox, as well as the possibility of not receiving official permission from the government to erect the cross. The Holy Cross remained in its place, untouched. Meanwhile, the Turkish government, wanting to somehow reassure the Catholics, decided to ask the Armenians if they had any complaints against the Greeks regarding their erection of a new cross on the Church of the Resurrection. Being at this time at peace with the Orthodox, the Armenians hastened to answer the Porte that they do not make any claims against the Greeks and consider the installation of a cross on the dome of the Church of the Resurrection to be completely legal. The Catholics had to shut up and admit defeat; but deep down in their souls they harbored hatred of the Greeks and a desire to take revenge at the first opportunity. The majestic cross still shines on the dome of the Church of the Resurrection. Much to the displeasure of Catholics, on the night of the New Year (1888), when Patriarch Nicodemus performed a solemn service in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the cross was illuminated with multi-colored lights. Crowds of spectators flocked to the Holy Sepulcher Church to admire this cross, which spoke of the triumph of Orthodoxy over Catholicism... You might be interested in: