Ancient Sect Marks Passover Sacrifice*

The Associated Press
Tuesday, May 1, 2007; 2:19 PM

MOUNT GERIZIM, West Bank -- Dressed in white and spattered in blood,
members of the tiny Samaritan sect gathered until the early hours of
Tuesday for one of the Holy Land's most colorful religious ceremonies _
the nighttime Passover sacrifice.

The entire Samaritan community, which totals just over 700 people, was
present for the sacrifice at the sect's holiest place, the West Bank
hilltop of Mt. Gerizim, near the city of Nablus.

Like the Jewish holiday of Passover, which was celebrated in early
April, the Samaritan holiday marks the Israelite exodus from Egypt as
recounted in the Old Testament. The Samaritans practice a religion
closely linked to Judaism and venerate a version of the Old Testament,
but are not Jews, and have a different religious calendar.

The sect's high priest opened the ceremony with a prayer in the
Samaritan tongue, a dialect of ancient Hebrew. Then ritual slaughterers
killed sheep, skinned them, and roasted them in large ovens. According
to tradition, the meat must be ready in the middle of the night _ the
time that the Angel of Death killed the Egyptian firstborn in the
biblical story _ and the Samaritans eat it in haste along with
unleavened bread, emulating the ancient Israelites.

Named for Samaria, a region in the northern West Bank, the Samaritans
believe themselves to be the remnants of Israelites exiled from the Holy
Land by the Assyrians in 722 B.C. They are probably best known for the
parable of the Good Samaritan in the New Testament's Book of Luke.

In the fourth and fifth centuries, the Samaritan population is thought
to have topped 1.5 million, but religious persecution and economic
hardship nearly erased it by the early 20th century. Half live in the
West Bank, and the other half live in the Israeli city of Holon, near
Tel Aviv.