SACRILEGE IN PALESTINE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 144, 7 March 1918, Page 6

SACRILEGE IN PALESTINE

TURKS DESPOIL NOTED SHRINE. An official dispatch received in Washington recently from Jj'ranoo says that the Turks, belore surrendering Jerusa* lem to the British, brutally mistreateit Christian priests,' carried off the lanious treasure of the Church of the Holy, Sepulchre, valued at millions of dollars, and sent to Berlin the church's celebrated ostensory of brilliauts. Mgr. Camassci, the patriarch of Jerusalem, is said to have been deposed from his office, and Father Piccardo, an Italian priest, to have died from the effects of Turkish brutalities. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre had remained unmolested heretofore during all the ceuturies of Moslem occupation ■of The same dispatch told of indignation among Mussulmen of Asia Minor over the aotiou of a German general in establishing staff headquarters in tha great'' mosque of the city of Aleppo, near the Syrian border. The' Church of the Holy Sepulchre was consecrated in 336 on. the traditional spot where Christ ro?e from 'tha v dead. In the. year 614 the buildings comprising the church were destroyed by the Persians. The original building was in the form of a rotunda, the shapo of which survived in the existing com-' pies constructive, which assumed various forms in the course of rebuilding during the Middle Ages, The .'edifice was badly damaged'by fire in 1808. J.ltd Greeks contrived to secure to themselves the principal right to the build-* ings, and, with'thc Armenians, contributed most of the money .for the erection of the new church. The dilapidated dome beneath which the sepulchro w situated was restored by architects of various nationalities in 1863, as the re-' suit of an agreement mado with Tur-. key bv France and Russia. Tho" chief entrance to the church iff from a court on tho south. -Hie court is naved with yellowish slabs of stone, and is infested ahvays_ by traders ana beggars. In the interior is the sepulchro proper, enclosed in a 16-sided chapel resting on 18 piers, and containing a great number- of. chapels appro-, priated to different creeds or national]' ties or marking various posts traditionally connected with the Saviour's Passion.