The people thus
alleged to have concurred in the great schism of the Eastern Empire
are never, I believe, within the walls of a church, or even of any
building at all, except upon this occasion of Easter; and as they
then never fail to find a row of some kind going on by the side of
the sepulchre, they fancy, it seems, that the ceremonies there
enacted are funeral games of a martial character, held in honour of
a deceased chieftain, and that a Christian festival is a peculiar
kind of battle, fought between walls, and without cavalry. It does
not appear, however, that these men are guilty of any ferocious
acts, or that they attempt to commit depredations. The charge
against them is merely that by their way of applauding the
performance, by their horrible cries and frightful gestures, they
destroy the solemnity of divine service, and upon this ground the
Franciscans obtained a firman for the exclusion of such tumultuous
worshippers. The Greeks, however, did not choose to lose the aid
of their wild converts merely because they were a little backward
in their religious education, and they therefore persuaded them to
defy the firman by entering the city en masse and overawing their
enemies.
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