388 
CHELICUT. 
dant was sent round from the high priest, to point out to each 
person concerned the part which he was to take in the ceremony. 
The officiating priest was habited in white flowing robes, with a 
tiara, or silver-mounted cap on his head, and he carried a censer 
with burning incense in his right hand : a second of equal rank 
was dressed in similar robes, supporting a large golden cross, 
while a third held in his hand a small phial containing a quantity 
of meiron,* or consecrated oil, which is furnished to the church of 
Abyssinia by the Patriarch of Alexandria. The attendant priests 
stood round in the form of a semicircle, the boy being placed in 
the centre, and our party ranged in front. After a few minutes 
interval, employed in singing psalms, some of the priests took the 
boy and washed him all over very carefully in a large bason of 
water. While this was passing a smaller font called pO^(f~}^ 
me-te-mak (which is always kept outside of the churches, owing 
to an unbaptized person not being permitted to enter the church) 
was placed in the middle of the area filled with water, which the 
priest consecrated by prayer, waving the incense repeatedly over 
it, and dropping into it a portion of the meiron in the shape of a 
cross. The boy was then brought back, dripping from head to 
foot, and again placed naked and upright in the centre ; and was 
required to renounce the devil and all his works,'' which was 
• Father Bernat, in a letter from Cairo, dated l7n, e^ives the following account of 
consecration of the meiron (or holy chrism used throughout the Alexandrian church in 
baptism) ; *' The consecration of the meiron is performed with great expense and many 
ceremonies by the patriarch himself, assisted by the bishop. It is composed, not only of 
oil of olives and balm, but of many other precious and odoriferous drugs. When the 
patriarch consecrates an arclihishop (or abuna) of Abyssinia, he gives him some of this 
meiron, which is not sent into the country on any other occasion." Vide Le Grand, 
p. 340, English edition. 
