Eastern churches prepared to mark Easter one week after the Roman Catholic celebration A few steps from Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre, a small opening leads to an underground cistern where clerics have found the perfect place to practise chants ahead of the holiest day in the Christian calendar. As Eastern churches prepared to mark Easter one week after the Roman Catholic celebration, Barakat al-Masri stood deep underneath Saint Helena’s Coptic Orthodox church, chanting hymns in Coptic and Arabic. The cistern is not much to look at, but al-Masri, the cantor at the Coptic church, says the sound it produces is unique. A woman climbs the stairs of a cistern, which according to Jerusalem tour guide Bashar Abu Shamsiyeh, was relied upon for water during the construction ...
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