Hasselquist, Frederick: Voyages and travels in the Levant in the years 1749, 50, 51, 52. London, L. Davis & C. Reymers, 1766.

Greeks dance at the Holy Sepulchre

Jerusalem, 1749

They there say prayers by themselves; and to those the common people ascribe the coming of the fire. In the mean time the Greeks, who are the most disorderly Christians, use various inventions in the choir round the Sepulchre; such as the ancients describe to have been used at their Bacchanals. Boys dance and skip about, representing the death and resurrection, and practice a thousand other follies of which the heathens would have been ashamed. This they do, at least so they say, to warm the earth, that the fire may come up more easily.