3-021-396 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Abyssinian Church Festival of Palm Sunday, 1868. 'The service begins before daybreak...each man held a long stick in his hand, with a cross piece on the top...exactly like the staffs used in the Greek Church...The first part of the ceremony was to present bits of the palm to every one present...A very large copy of the Scriptures in Coptic, written on sheepskin, and well bound in brown leather, was held up by two of the younger clergy. One of the older priests stood before it with a richly-ornamented wooden cross, which he held in his right hand, as if presenting it to the book; in his other hand he held, like the others, a branch of palm. He read a portion of the book. I noticed that at times he was not quite sure of the words; and more than once I heard him prompted and corrected in his reading by those around him. This does not indicate a great degree of scholarship among the priests of this Church...Beside this priest there stood a robed attendant with incense, in a very richly-ornamented censer. Another stood with a large cross, made of brass, on the end of a pole; the cross had the crescent underneath it, this being a common arrangement in the Eastern Church. A boy carried a bell, which was well used all through the ceremony'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.