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National Geographic : 1915 May
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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE in battle by Joannice, King of the Bul garians, had been put to death, and his skull, lined with gold, was serving as a drinking-cup to his savage conqueror. Hopeless and broken-hearted, nothing was left the wanderer save to sicken and die. The pathos of her story redeems some of the coarser horrors of the Fourth Crusade, and makes it meet that she should rest at last within that most regal pile where she had dreamed of being crowned by her husband's hands. CONSTANTINE'S LAST COMMUNION There is nothing more pathetic in the long, troubled annals of the Eastern Em pire than the night before its glorious fall. On May 28, 1453, an hour before mid night, Constantine came once more to Sancta Sophia. The sacrament was ad ministered, but by Romish hands, to him and to his immortal band, as to the dy Sing. He knew, and so did each in that silent company, that if they were faithful unto death the sands of their earthly life had less than 24 hours to run. No hope of victory then flickered in that solemn scene. No less grand was it than Leon idas and the Spartans at Thermopylae. All equal in that crucial hour, the Em peror, that he might be absolved by all, begged the forgiveness of any whom in; his brief reign he might have unwittingly; wronged. The mail-clad men were not ashamed to weep, and their answering sobs alone broke the stillness. Then the last Byzantine emperor crossed the, threshold that for centuries no Christian, sovereign was to tread. On the following day Sancta Sophia. was packed with a throng such as it had never seen before. Not that the con course was more vast, but a common agony filled the souls of all. Some were indeed clinging to the ancient legend that when a victorious enemy reached the Col umn of Constantine an angel would place a flaming sword in the hand of a little child, who forthwith would drive back the invaders. The Ottomans beat open the doors of the southern vestibule, whereon may still be seen the marks of their impatient violence. The crowded mob of refugees, paralyzed with horror, offered no resistance. No blood was shed, either of conquered or conqueror. No violence was used. The half-dead captives-ascetic monk and maiden on whose veiled face the sun had hardly shone, high-born lady and kitchen scul lion, patrician and beggar-were bound together in couples and driven forth in long files to be sold as slaves. THE OTTOMANS' DEVOTION The Ottomans regard Sancta Sophia with the utmost reverence. Therein they but follow the example of the illustrious Conqueror, whose eager steps first turned hither after his hard-won victory and whose first official act in his blood-bought capital was its conversion into a mosque. Alone of all churches submitted to Islam, it retains its Christian name, the Aya Sofia of the Moslems being but the literal rendering of the 'Ayia 2o80a of the Greeks. Despite all their efforts to transform Sancta Sophia, its Christian characteris tics can be effaced only by its own de struction. Its structural form has always resisted the requirements of the Moslem ritual. It resembles a mighty captive, ever mutely protesting against his chains. The long rows of prayer carpets stretch in diagonal lines, inharmonious, across the floor, and the devotees, facing Mecca, are forced to bend in an unnatural direc tion toward the corner of the church. CHRIST'S IMAGE STILL REMAINS In the prostituted church the Chris tian, weary of Arabic inscriptions and Ottoman traditions, grows heart-sick and hungry for something that is his. The ever-present architectural grandeur and invisible memories of the past are not enough. Let him ascend the southern gallery and gaze from among the six colonnaded columns toward the vaulted ceiling above the five windows of the cen tral apse. Gradually in the dim, half veiled surface he discerns the mosaic form of a colossal Christ. The hair, the forehead, the mild eyes of the Saviour may be traced and the indistinct outline of his form. The right hand, gentle "as when In love and in meekness he moved among men," is extended still in unutterable blessing, and in its comprehensive reach seems to embrace the stranger. Within the shadow one feels Christ is keeping watch above his own. 482
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