CHAPTER XIIIA Midnight Mass
On Easter Eve, it is the practice of the Orthodox Greek Church to hold a Special Vigil, which terminates at midnight on Holy Saturday. In the year 1917 this vigil had unusual significance for the Rumanian people, who were passing through a time of tribulation, the words “Kyrie Eleison”38were in every heart, and even the irreligious sought the solace of Mother Church.
I had been with the Armies, and had returned to Jassy late on Easter Saturday. My way had lain through almost deserted country, with here and there a sparsely populated village, whose tolling church bells called the peasants to their prayers.
The Moldavian capital was densely crowded. Since early in the evening, a great concourse had been assembling in the Cathedral Square. At the time of my arrival, thousands of patient waiting people stood there, a sea of faces blanched in the moonlight, pinched by want and cold. Many Russian soldiers were sharing in this outer vigil. Just before midnight, after the King and Queen had entered the Cathedral, some of them broke through the cordon of Rumanian troops and tried to force an entrance. They also wished to worship in accordance with the ritual of their church, but were heldback and roughly handled. There was not room for all who wished to enter in, and these were soldiers of the Revolution wearing the red cockade. One of them, quite a boy in years, fell prostrate and inarticulate on the steps, and was permitted to remain.
The vigil ended shortly after midnight, and at its close the Archbishop led a procession to the precincts, where massed bands played, rockets soared high in Heaven, and true believers kissed each other, saying: “Christ is risen.”
Once more we entered the Cathedral, and what I have called a Midnight Mass or Liturgy was celebrated. The term may well be a misnomer. There may not have been a mystical destruction, but there were prayers of penitence and praise, of supplication and thanksgiving, and these we are taught are the four ends of the sacrifice of the Mass.
Jassy Cathedral is not one of those vast Gothic structures, whose symmetry and gorgeous decoration serve as memorials of the inspired human efforts which graced a more religious age. It is a plain unostentatious building of no great size. This night, however, it appeared transformed; height, length and breadth assumed immense, mysterious proportions—the chancel blazed with light, all other parts of the interior of the building were wrapped in obscurity, side chapels loomed like cavernous recesses, the nave was filled with flickering shadows, its vault resembled a dark firmament above a tense expectant multitude, a seemingly innumerable host, stretching far back in serried lines and ever deepening gloom.
Rumanian soldiers predominated in the congregation, the radiance from the altar was reflected on swart, fierce faces, and shone in countless eyes. Queen Mary, surroundedby her ladies, stood near the centre of the transept, a group of white-clad figures gleaming softly against the grey background. The King and his second son occupied two thrones on the south side of the chancel, facing them were the representatives of seven Allied States.
At the commencement of the service the music was subdued, treble and alto voices recited canticles and chanted antiphons. Sometimes a clear soprano rang out alone. I could not understand the words, but one of the melodies recalled an air by Handel, a touching declaration of faith triumphant, a woman’s voice proclaiming that her Redeemer lives. Later, the character of the music changed. From a gallery at the Cathedral’s western end, a choir of men thundered out pæans of rejoicing, which rose in shattering crescendos, and surged up to the altar in waves of sonorous sound.
The climax of the ceremony was reached when the Archbishop left the altar steps and knelt before the King. The old Primate’s work was done. This learned monk and priest of God was a Rumanian citizen. As such, he surrendered to his temporal sovereign the symbol of all Christendom, and his own most sacred charge. King Ferdinand received it reverently, and a Catholic Hohenzollern Prince stood as the Head of Church and State holding a jewelled cross.
An unexpected movement followed. Most of the foreign diplomats and soldiers pressed round the Royal throne, and paid homage to both spiritual and temporal power by kissing first the crucifix and then the Monarch’s hand.
This gesture was neither premeditated nor prompted by a spirit of Erastianism. It was the act of men underthe influence of deep emotion. Something had touched their hearts; something, perhaps, which brought back memories of boyhood, when belief was ready, and young imaginations glowed, and youth was vowed to noble needs; something which stirred feelings numbed by contact with worldliness and cruelty on life’s rough way; something still fragrant and redolent of innocence, which they had lost long since and found awhile.
To the peasant soldiers, the music, the incense and the vestments combined to make a beatific vision, a light to those who walked in darkness, and whose simple faith was strong and real. They believed implicitly in the second advent of a man who had been, and would be again—Wonderful, a Counsellor, a Good Shepherd, and a Prince of Peace. They had known sorrow and defeat, the enemy was in their land, famine and pestilence were ravaging their homes, but they were soldiers of the Cross and undismayed. More battles would be fought, battles without the pomp and circumstance of those in theatres less remote. The last heroic stand at Marasesti39would be made by humble men, who, this night throughout Moldavia, were met together for a festival of their Church, not to sing songs of lamentation, but to cry Hallelujah and Hosanna, to tell the joyful tidings—“Christ is risen.”