Midnight Mass, the Orthodox Way

This past Saturday evening, my friend Ivan stopped by my room. He is an Orthodox Christian from Bulgaria and told me that an Orthodox archbishop, named Eulogios, was visiting Jerusalem and would be celebrating a mass that evening. "What time?" I asked. "Well," said Ivan, "The chanting will begin at midnight, but the service itself not until 1 am." When I asked him why so late, he explained that midnight to 3 am is the timeslot for the Orthodox to hold liturgies in front of the sepulcher itself. As you may remember from the visit Emily and I made to the church, it is divided among various religious groups, and the interior of the tomb is divided among the Eastern Orthodox, the Roman Catholic and the Armenian Apostolic, each with a different time slot for liturgies at the tomb. Ivan was explaining this to me at 9 pm and then said: "I shall sleep now and you wake me up at midnight and we will go." I agreed.

A little after midnight we were walking down a deserted Nablus Road, through the Damascus Gate and into the Old City. What a change from the day! It was eerily empty without the people herding through and merchandise spilling out of shops. Here's a shot of me with plenty of elbow room for a change:


When we got to the Holy Sepulcher, there were some people gathered around the Stone of Unction at the entrance, but most folks were gathered in the Crusader Chapel in the heart of the church, which sits directly opposite the tomb. Inside this chapel there were three cantors taking turns chanting prayers in Greek. I could not follow them, but according to Ivan the prayers "had something to do with Our Lady."

As we waited for the liturgy to begin, we spoke softly about various things, including why Bulgarians dislike Hillary Clinton: apparently she came as First Lady to Bulgaria and gave a speech that Ivan described as "detestable. It was truly detestable. You cannot imagine." But before I even tried to imagine, the service had started. (Later I was thinking that if Hillary does win in '08, Sofia will not be on the short list for state visits!)

The liturgy began with the procession of Orthodox priests leading forth Archbishop Eulogios, who took his seat in front of the tomb, in which the altar was set up.

What followed was a lot of chanting in various languages (Romanian, Russian, Greek and even some Latin), a lot of candles and lots of going in and out of the tomb. All the while, we the faithful (about a hundred of us) stood by as there were no seats. There was real beauty in the liturgy, and for a time I was very attentive to the richness of its ritual. But as the liturgy approached 2 am, I must say I was getting anxious to wrap things up and get back to the Albright. As much as I tried to remind myself that experiences like these only happen in Jerusalem, my eyelids were getting pretty heavy.

Mercifully, around 2:15 am the bread and wine were consecrated and brought from the tomb into the Crusader Chapel. Neither Ivan nor I had fasted properly, so we did not take communion, but there was some other bread there, the loaves of which had been cut into squares. I never quite understood how this bread fit in the liturgy, but it too required fasting before it could be eaten. Since Ivan had slept the three hours before the service he could eat the bread right then, but he advised me to wait until morning and eat the bread first thing.

Finally, we made our way back through the ghostly Old City, returned to the Albright and were in bed about 3 am. I can't say I'd commit to another late night service of any denomination, but it was a fun to go once, especially with Ivan, who was enthusiastic about the outing. He's leaving for Bulgaria on Thursday, so it was also nice to spend some time with him before he goes home.

When he sent the two pictures he took from our visit to the Holy Sepulcher, he also included this picture of Theophilos III, who is the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem. He wasn't on hand Saturday night, but I thought you might enjoying seeing to head of the Orthodox here in Jerusalem.