Peter's pilgrimage

Return and reflection

2010-06-20T22:24:00.003+12:00

24-26 May, 2010

In the morning I packed my bags and did a bit of blogging. Then I caught the metro to the airport. I left my hotel 3 hours before my plane was due to leave, and as it happened, that was a good thing, because I had a long wait for the train. I checked my large suitcase through to Auckland and took what I needed for my stopover in Dubai in my backpack. The flight went fine and the transfer to my hotel in Dubai went perfectly. I was just sorry I wasn't staying longer as it was a lovely hotel! (I got into Dubai around 10pm and had to leave the hotel around 7.15am the next day.) I flew directly to Sydney, arriving at 6am on the 26th, and after a short stopover headed on to Auckland. After my sleep in the hotel in Dubai, I found it almost impossible to sleep on the plane - so I watched movies non-stop to Sydney and on to Auckland! I particularly liked Helen Mirren's portrayal of Tolstoy's wife in the Last Station and I thought that District 9 was a very exciting and involving movie. When I got to Auckland I found my suitcase as planned and then had a few hours to wait for the plane to Wellington. By this time I was definitely wilting! I finally got to Wellington around 6pm and had a lovely welcome from Helen, Michael, Eliza and my mother who had come to meet me. It was great to spend the evening (and the following days) together with the family after 9 weeks apart.

As I have reflected on my trip, I have thought how fortunate I was in all that I did and experienced. How can I sum up such an amazing and enriching time in a few paragraphs? Perhaps a photograph will help.

This is an icon of the resurrection that I photographed in the Benaki Museum in Athens. Another depiction of this same traditional resurrection theme had been discussed during my Holy Week and Easter course in Jerusalem. So it links both parts of my time away.

In the centre of the icon is Jesus, depicted as the all-conquering hero, defeating death and depopulating hell through his glorious resurrection power. The absolute centre of our faith as Christians is Jesus the Messiah, who is Saviour, Lord and God. Whether in Israel and Jordan or in Greece and modern-day Turkey, the saving power of this Jesus was experienced and proclaimed by those who knew him during his earthly life, and those, like St Paul, who first met him as the risen Lord of all. Jesus is the Lord we proclaim throughout the world. Of course, we do not proclaim him to the exclusion of God the Father or of the Holy Spirit, but we must not water down the fact that the human/divine Jesus was raised from the dead. He ascended to the Father and lives to raise all of us to life with him.

Notice the vigour with which he raises Adam and Eve from the dead - and with them all of us. Human sin and death is no match for the vitality and goodness within our Saviour. He pulls them by their arms. They are not helping him. They cannot help themselves. Jesus is doing this alone in the power of God. He stands on the broken-down gates of hell and beneath his feet are the demons and all the instruments by which they have sought to harm and terrorise humanity. Satan is fast bound, never to do harm again.

And Jesus does this for both Adam and Eve - for male and female, for all who are like me and all who are not like me. There is no one across any human divide, however much I dislike or differ from that person, however much you dislike or differ from that person, who is not a subject for the resurrection to eternal life through Jesus Christ. He is not just my Lord or our Lord but Lord of all. As I said in my blog on Easter Day (8 April), "God's love and goodwill is for all of us whoever and whatever we are."

What return can we make for all the goodness and life that radiate from our Saviour and lover of all? That is perhaps the most important question as I come to the end of my sabbatical. Fr Makarios at Simonos Petras monastery on Mt Athos would say to me, "It is all God's work, beginning and end, but in the middle we can co-operate a little." May I and may we co-operate with the grace that God has showered upon us through Jesus, so that what he has done may achieve its purpose in our lives and in our world, to the glory of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Athens archaeological sites

2010-06-20T20:02:00.000+12:00

23 May, 2010

Today was my last full day in Athens and I had set it aside for visiting the Acropolis and other archaeological sites. First, though, as it was the Day of Pentecost, I went to the liturgy at the local Greek Orthodox Church - Agiou Konstantinou. It was in the process of being upgraded and had scaffolding all over the outside and no photos allowed inside - so it was not a very photogenic experience. But I was glad to put worship first on this day, and to enjoy the chanting of the cantors and the drama of the liturgy, even though I didn't understand many of the words that were used. Sometimes my 'worship' lapsed into people-watching! It was interesting to observe the range of people who had come to worship in this central city church and their behaviour - from chatter to intense devotion. When the time came for people to receive communion I slipped out, as it is not permitted for people of a non-Orthodox denomination to share in communion at an Orthodox Eucharist.

Once outside I took the metro to the Monastiraki stop and walked through the Plaka area towards the Acropolis. The Acropolis overlooks the city, but as you get closer it becomes even more dominant.

I headed towards the new Acropolis Museum. This museum was built to house every artefact found on the Acropolis, including the marble statues removed from the Acropolis by Lord Elgin and sold to the British Museum. The Greeks have been trying to get these 'Elgin marbles' returned for years, and the British Museum has steadfastly refused. The new Acropolis Museum is a strong statement to the British that the Greeks are willing and able to care for the Elgin marbles as part of their own cultural heritage.

After visiting the museum I made my way up to the Acropolis. On the way, I passed the Odeon (theatre) of Herodes Atticus, built in 161AD.

Herodes Atticus (101-177) was a Greek nobleman who became a Roman Senator. A very wealthy man, he donated impressive monuments in many of the famous classical sites, including a monumental water fountain (nymphaeum) in Olympia, which I saw and admired. This splendid theatre at the Acropolis is still used for festival events in Greece. You can get an idea of how beautiful the theatre is from the Acropolis side.

Not far from it, again on the approaches to the Acropolis, was the ancient theatre of Dionysus, one of the earliest theatres in the world, where the most famous Greek dramatists, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes would all have put on the first performances of their great plays in the fifth century BC. What we saw, though, were remains from the stone theatre built in the fourth century BC and restored in 61 AD, in the time of the Emperor Nero.

The Acropolis itself was stunning. Despite their inevitable deterioration over almost 2,500 years, the monuments were hugely impressive, giving just an idea of how glorious the original must have been. This is a view of the grand entrance building and gate to the Acropolis, which is called the Propylaia.

Once inside the Propylaia I was surprised to see valuable ancient friezes just stacked up on blocks during the restoration of one of the buildings.

A little way past them was the Parthenon in all her/its glory!

This magnificent temple was built under the overall supervision of the sculptor Pheidias, who also created the monumental statue of Zeus in Olympia. Pheidias was also in charge of the sculptural decoration. Many of the great sculptures from the pediments and friezes of the Parthenon were removed by Lord Elgin, possibly with the permission of the then rulers of Greece, the Turks (and possibly without permission!).

One thing that I particularly noticed and appreciated about the Acropolis was that the Parthenon was not crowded by other monuments. The planners of the site must have decided to leave it sufficient space to have its full effect on the eye.

The other major building on the summit of the Acropolis is the Erechtheion.

This Temple has a complex shape, owing to the steep gradient of the site on the right and far side. On the left hand side you can see the famous 'Porch of the Caryatids', with six statues of maidens (caryatids) functioning as pillars to hold up the roof. Again, Lord Elgin took one of these caryatid sculptures. While the originals have been placed in the new Acropolis museum, the Greeks have left one caryatid missing, as a reminder of this missing sculpture.

As I went down from the Acropolis, I saw the Areopagus just below me. In the time of St Paul, this rock was a meeting place for the council of elders in Athens. On a visit to Athens, St Paul noticed the large number of pagan altars there, including an altar to 'the unknown god'. Paul then went on to give a beautifully constructed speech to the council of elders on the Areopagus, where he proclaimed the God of Israel as this unknown God, who had raised Jesus from the dead ( Acts 17:22-31).

From the Areopagus I looked down upon the ancient agora (market place) with many imposing monuments. Just above the agora sits the beautiful temple of Hephaistos (the Greek god of fire and metal-working) built in the 5th century BC.

I walked down from the Areopagus through the ancient agora, and was most impressed to see the stoa of Attalos, a building built around 150BC, not as a ruin, but fully restored (this was done in the 1950s with funding from the American Rockefeller family). The beautiful clean lines and white marble of the building gave me an inkling of what Athens must have looked like in its heyday.

From the agora I took a photo that captured three eras of Athens' history - the ancient Erechtheion on the Acropolis, the 10th century Byzantine Church of the Holy Apostles in the agora itself, and a modern house just next to the agora.

During my visits in Athens I had noticed Greek families coming to view museums and had thought how proud they must be of their history. Imagine what it must feel like for a modern Athenian to live in that house in the midst of such a wealth of cultural history.

From the agora I went to various other archaeological sites. First, the Library of Hadrian (built in 132 AD), and then the Roman agora (the marketplace used during the Roman period). In this agora is the Tower of the Winds, built around 50BC. This structure was eight-sided, with each side topped by a sculpture indicating one of the eight winds. The tower displayed a sundial that showed the season and the time of day. If the weather was overcast, the tower contained a 24 hour mechanized water clock. It might not quite have fitted on a person's wrist, but it was amazing technology for the time.

The last archaeological site I visited was the Temple of Olympian Zeus. This monument was begun in the 6th century BC but not completed until Hadrian's time in the 2nd century AD, 638 years later! At the time it was the biggest Temple in Greece. Not much remains of this Temple now apart from some huge columns, indicating the scale of the original. As you can see from the picture below, it is overlooked by the Acropolis.

I was pretty weary after traipsing around all these sites, so I took the metro back to my hotel. After dinner I sorted through my photos and then got to bed. I had plenty of time to pack tomorrow, before catching my plane to Dubai.

3 Athens museums

2010-06-13T20:04:00.002+12:00

22 May, 2010

I had two days to see 3 museums and the archaeological sites of Athens, and as the weather was threatening to rain today, I decided to go to the museums.

I walked through the city to get to the museums. Along the way I was pleased to notice a shop selling mastic products from Chios.

My first stop was the Byzantine Museum, which displayed various artefacts from the Byzantine Empire (4th to 15th centuries AD), focusing particularly on the history of the territories that are part of modern Greece.

There was a lot to learn about the evolution of the Byzantine empire and the transition from pagan to Christian worship in the 4th to 6th centuries. There was a lovely nativity scene from the Greek Island of Naxos, dating to this early period.

There was also a marble closure slab from the pulpit of the Christian Parthenon.

In the 5th or 6th century the Parthenon was converted to a church (and later on it became the cathedral of Athens). Sadly, in this 'Christianising' phase throughout the Empire, a great deal of damage was done to 'pagan' works of art and architecture. The Parthenon itself suffered significant damage. I could both understand the desire to make a break from the pagan past, and also lament the damage and destruction that resulted.

The museum contained a number of other arterfacts (including icons) that were good to see, but nothing else that needs to be mentioned specifically here.

Next, I went to the National Art Gallery, which focuses particularly on Greek art of the 19th and 20th centuries. I was particularly taken by the works of Nikolaos Gysis (1842-1901) and Konstantinos Parthenis (1878-1967), both of whom painted religious themes as well as secular ones. This painting by Nikolaos Gysis was entitled, "Behold the Celestial Bridegroom Comes". The orange colour in the picture was highly luminous and with this and the huge crowd of people lining the sides of the steps, there was a sense of immensity about the painting and about the heaven it was depicting.

Another impressive picture was a very large painting by Konstantinos Parthenis of the crucified and living Christ. The light was coming from above him and it was dark below. He looked as if he was just in the process of coming out of the land of the dead.

This painter used colour and light beautifully. I loved a landscape by him with wildflowers that shone out of the grass.

There were also a number of more modern works that were very striking. Perhaps the most outstanding of these was this picture of the sea.

I loved the way that the sea was on an angle, as it often appears when you are viewing it from a boat.

After the art gallery I set out for a private museum - the Benaki Museum - that had been highly recommended by the guide books. It contained an amazing collection of artefacts from the whole of Greece's history.

Like the National Archaeological Museum, this museum had a beautiful display of ancient golden treasures and jewellery. However, there were a couple of ancient pottery exhibits that particularly stood out for me. The first exhibit was a lovely couple of vases from the 8th century BC. The painting was particularly quirky - I loved the horses and the way the gaps were filled in with various designs.

The second exhibit I liked was this vase painting of lions, sphinxes and geese. I thought the lions' faces were particularly well-designed and whimsical.

There were some fine icons of the Cretan school, including the following one by Andreas Ritzos.

The top floor of the museum contained artefacts from the Greek war of independence that was fought with the Ottoman Empire. It was a long-drawn out and bitterly fought war, and there were a number of bloody massacres, including the massacre of the population at Chios in 1822 (see my post from May entitled 'In Chios'). This massacre was widely denounced in Western Europe verbally and also through artistic depictions of the massacre by Eugene Delacroix and others. In the Benaki Museum, there was a picture by Chudiakov, entitled The Massacre at Chios, that caught my attention.

At the end of the day, as I left the Benaki Museum, I had an unexpected bonus. I saw 3 Evzones (members of the Presidential guard) marching in their very stylised manner down the street. The tomb of the unknown soldier is in this area, so they had presumably come from a period on duty there.

Tour of mainland Greece

2010-06-08T17:48:00.001+12:00

18-21 May, 2010

In the morning I was picked up from my hotel and taken to my tour bus, where I joined 10 others who were doing either a 3-day or 4-day 'Classical' tour of mainland Greece. Our guide, Vassiliki, was by far the best guide I had on the tour. Her English was excellent, she had a good sense of humour and a passion for her subject. We learned a lot from her.

Our first stop was at the Corinth canal. As early as classical times people had thought of digging a canal between the Saronic Gulf and the Gulf of Corinth. But the canal was only finally dug in 1893. It is an impressive piece of engineering.

The next stop we made was at Epidauros, where there are remains of an ancient Temple of Asklepios and a beautiful ancient Greek theatre. Vassiliki told us that the key focus at Epidauros was the Temple of Asklepios, god of healing, and that the theatre performances offered healing of the mind to complement the healing of the body offered at the Temple.

The theatre at Epidauros was built in the 4th century BC and is the best preserved of all Greek theatres. Greek theatres are distinctive in having a circular 'orchestra' in the front, rather than a semi-circular space as in the Roman theatres. This circular space was originally for a group or chorus to perform songs and dances in praise of the gods, so Greek drama had religious origins. In the 6th century BC, a man named Thespis added an actor to this group, allowing stories to be told in a much more personal and affecting way. Subsequently extra actors were added during the 5th century BC.

The theatre at Epidauros is magnificent - and its acoustics are unbelievable. In the centre of the orchestra is a stone. When an actor stands on that stone, if the theatre is full and everyone is silent, the sound of the actor's breathing can be heard throughout the theatre. Yes! Unfortunately, when we went, there were lots of school children shouting around the theatre, so we didn't have perfect conditions to test out the acoustics. Still, I stood on the stone and recited some lines from a chorus in the play Philoctetes by Sophocles (5th century BC), which I studied when I was a student at Victoria University.

I actually found the experience of visiting Epidauros surprisingly moving. It was not just the connection with my study of classical Greek so long ago. It was also the sense that the theatre had been built for the purpose of bringing people healing through a deeper experience of the truths and the sufferings of life. There is a surprising freedom that comes with the acceptance of the uncertainties of our human condition. As William Blake wrote many centuries later, "Man is made for joy and woe, and when this we truly know, through the world we safely go."

After Epidauros we set off for ancient Mycenae, the famous city of Agamemnon, who led the Greek army to Troy. On the way we passed one of 5 Mycenaean bridges in this area, which we were told were the oldest bridges still standing in Europe. They were built in the late Helladic period (ca 1300-1190 BC).

Mycenae was a very impressive site, high up between two mountains with a natural water supply and overlooking a vast territory.

In order to get into the ancient city of Mycenae we had to pass through the famous Lion Gate, built around 1250 BC. Look at the huge stones in the wall, and the even more colossal stones in the frame and lintel of the gate. The triangular relief above the lintel over the gate stands at the front of the huge lintel stone, and has a structural purpose of reducing pressure on the lintel stone itself. An architect from the United States in our group was very interested in aspects of the engineering, which were revolutionary in their day and contributed to the development of classical architecture.

Not far through the gate was grave circle A, where Schliemann discovered the golden and other treasures that are now displayed in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

The Mycenaean culture flourished between the 17th and 12th centuries BC. It was the leading culture in the North Eastern Mediterranean during much of this time. So, it was natural for the Greek expedition against Troy around 1200 BC to have been led by the king of this great city.

After visiting Mycenae, we headed off for the tourist village of Olympia, just next to the archaeological site. It was a long journey and we were glad to arrive, have dinner and get to bed.

The next day we were out of the hotel by 8.30am, heading for Olympia. The ancient precinct was not far away and we stopped in the car park. As we walked to the site, our guide Vassiliki showed us one of the typical roadside shrines that are found throughout Greece. These shrines can indicate a nearby monastery or church, but they can also mean that there has been a death through a traffic accident of some sort. The items in the shrine can help you understand a little about the person being commemorated. There is often a card of a saint. This will be the patron saint of the person being commemorated, indicating that person’s name and gender. Secondly, there may be a little plaque with a picture of part of the person’s body. This indicates where the person needed (or had received) healing. Flowers are included for remembrance. There is normally a little oil lamp with oil poured over water (which is heavier and so stays below the level of the oil). A lighter is normally also left in the shrine. The oil lamp can be safely lit and left, knowing that it will gradually burn out and be extinguished by the water.

Olympia is a sacred precinct that has a lovely air of tranquility about it. It is set in a beautiful area, between two rivers. The photo below, of the ‘gymnasium’ (an open practice area for running training that was originally surrounded by a portico on all sides), gives you an idea of what the precinct was like when we visited it. While there would have been many more buildings standing in classical times, I am sure that some of the leafy, tranquil atmosphere would still have been there.

The archaeological site, dedicated to Olympian Zeus, was an area that had been a sacred precinct even before the 12 Olympian gods began to be worshipped around 1400 BC. One temple that had been excavated dated back to the 3rd millennium BC, when the mother goddess was the principal deity. The fact that this temple is older than the surrounding temples is indicated by its being built at a lower level on the ground. Olympia constitutes one huge ‘tell’ in archaeological terms.

The Olympic Games connects with the Greek idea of honouring the gods with one’s body as well as one’s mind. These Games were sporting contests held in honour of Zeus, the king of the gods, and only free citizens of Greek cities and colonies were allowed to compete. The earliest records of the games date back to 776BC, but they had probably taken place for some years before that. The Games were held every 4 years in summer for 15 days, and during the competitions and the travelling time before and after the games, no warfare was allowed between Greeks. Victory at the Games was considered to be the greatest of honours for a Greek male and the city state he represented. (Our guide told us that there were also games for women in honour of the goddess Hera, held every four years in the spring.)

The sanctuary of Olympia built up huge prestige, and the priests of Olympia had a diplomatic and administrative role, not just a purely religious one. This would have related to the administration and judging of the Games, appropriate honouring of special guests, keeping the peace between hostile factions while at the games, enhancing the prestige of the sanctuary and ensuring its security.

The importance of security can be understood from information about the centrepiece of the sanctuary, the Temple of Zeus. Within it was a colossal statue of Zeus, 12 metres high, made by the sculptor, Pheidias, of wood covered with gold or ivory. Approximately 1,000 kgs of gold was used for this one statue, and skin was indicated on the sculpture by a layer of ivory. This sculpture was considered to be one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. (The sign below shows a reconstruction of the front of the temple and the comparative size of the statue of Zeus within the temple.)

Within the large ancient precinct there were many buildings. Some of these were temples, others were buildings or monuments that had been erected for purposes relating to the athletic contests, and still others were monuments that had been erected principally to enhance the reputation of the donor. As well as the gymnasium (for running training), we visited the palaistra (for training in wrestling and boxing), the theokoleon (priests’ quarters), the Leonidaion (accommodation for special guests), the Philippeion (monument put up by Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, to emphasise his Greek heritage), various temples, and of course the stadium. This is where the original competitions were held, and where the shot put was held in the 2004 games, held in Greece.

It was a real thrill to walk the length of the stadium and to reflect on the competitions that took place here over more than 1,000 years.

We had lunch at Olympia and then headed off towards Delphi. Along the way we crossed the Gulf of Corinth on the new suspension bridge.

As we approached Delphi, we rose steeply from sea level.

The mountain landscape was rugged and impressive. The village, like the ancient site of Delphi close by, was set on the side of a steep mountain. This is the view from the village towards the Gulf of Corinth.

The next morning we were up and off early to visit the archaeological site of Delphi. Delphi was a sacred site of huge importance to the Greeks and eventually throughout Europe and Asia Minor as well. The Delphic oracle was the most famous prophetic oracle in the ancient world and kings, rulers and military leaders all came to Delphi to seek advice from the oracle so that they would know what actions to take.

We started our tour at the Delphi museum, to get an idea of the layout, history and artefacts of the site. A model showed the layout of the site.

The main temple on the site was the temple of Apollo, the god to whom the whole site of Delphi was dedicated. In this model, just in front of the Temple, you can see a large column (over 10 metres high) on which a sphinx was erected as a guardian to ward off evil. This was an offering from the island of Naxos around 560 BC. The sphinx itself is in the museum.

There were some amazing treasures in the museum, but three stood out for me in particular. Firstly, some treasures had been stored in a pit in the 5th century BC, apparently after a fire (because the treasures were all burned to some degree). Among these were parts of sacred statues of Apollo, Aphrodite the sister of Apollo, and Leto their mother. These statues were made out of gold and ivory, as the colossal statue of Zeus was at Olympia. As far as I am aware, these are the only classical Greek statues made of these materials that are still in existence. The ivory burned black, but the gold could be restored to its original colour.

When I saw the face of Apollo I had the sense of what it might have been like to enter that ancient temple 2500 years ago.

The next item of real interest to me was an inscription of a hymn to Apollo that includes the most ancient musical notation in existence, dating to the 2nd century BC. The letter-pitch notation is written above the words.

Finally, there was a wonderful bronze statue of a charioteer, given to the sanctuary by the ruler of a Greek colony in Sicily after the games at Delphi dedicated to Pythean Apollo. This sculpture was originally part of a group that included a four horse chariot, and was one of the most famous sculptures in antiquity.

The statue is one of the few Greek bronzes to preserve the inlaid glass eyes and the copper detailing of the eyelashes and lips. The headband is of silver and may have been inlaid with precious stones, which have been removed.

The figure is of a very young man, as is shown by his soft side-curls. (Like modern jockeys, chariot racers were chosen for their lightness, but also needed to be tall, so they were frequently teenagers.) He is wearing a xystis, the garment which drivers wore while racing. It falls to his ankles and is fastened high at the waist with a plain belt. The two straps that cross high at his upper back prevented the xystis from "ballooning" during the race.

The statue is of the moments after the race when the winner of the race might have been doing a victory lap. The veins are still up in his arm from the tension of the race, but he is now relaxed with a serene expression on his face. As you can see, the folds of his clothing are beautifully shown.

After the time at the museum we went to the archaeological site of ancient Delphi, climbing the sacred way up to the Temple of Apollo. There was a breath-taking view from the Temple site.

There were lots of monuments to see on the site, but one that caught my fancy was the altar of Apollo, just in front of the Temple site. The island of Chios donated this impressive altar built almost entirely of black marble in 475 BC. Because of the steep gradient of the hill, the altar is tall looking from the bottom, but a normal height looking from the forecourt of the Temple. As a result of this donation, the authorities at Delphi gave to the Chians the right to go to the front of the queue (promanteia) if they wanted an oracle. This right is written on the base of the altar. After my visit to Chios, I was intrigued to see this piece of the island's history.

In the afternoon we headed towards Kalambaka, where we were to stay close to the Meteora monasteries that are perched on their steep pinnacles. On the way we stopped at Thermopylae, the site of a famous 'last stand' by around 1,500 Greeks in the face of a huge Persian army. When the Persians advanced towards the small Greek force guarding a narrow pass, the Persians told the Greeks to lay down their arms. The leader of the Greek force, the Spartan King Leonidas, famously replied "Molon labe" ("Come and get them"). After two days of fighting, with the Persians sustaining severe losses, they found a way to encircle the Greeks. The small force of Spartans, Thespians and Thebans stayed where they were, blocking the pass and fighting to the death, so that other Greek soldiers retreating would escape being caught and surrounded by the Persian chariots and cavalry. Although this was a defeat for the Greek forces, the bravery of the Greek - and especially the Spartan - soldiers made this a defining moment for the ancient Greeks.

The poet Simonides composed a famous epigram that memorialises the heroism of the Spartan soldiers: "Stranger, go and to the Spartans tell, that here, obeying their behests, we fell." This has been engraved as an epitaph on a memorial stone at the site.

The next day, after a short stop at an icon-making workshop, we visited two of the monasteries on the Meteora rock pinnacles. The weather was wet and so the splendour of the view that you often see in photos was diminished, but on the other hand the mist and cloud created quite a mysterious atmosphere. This is what the rocky outcrop looks like from the town of Kalambaka (a Turkish word meaning 'beautiful castle'). St Stephen's is the only monastery visible from the town. You can just see signs of St Stephen's monastery on the outcrop a quarter of the picture along from the left.

On the way up the mountain we saw our first monastery from close quarters. This was Roussanou monastery. It is on a rock pinnacle, but is relatively accessible, being the lowest of the monasteries and quite close to the main road up the cliffs.

Then we went on to St Stephen's monastery, which I had glimpsed from Kalambaka.

As we entered St Stephens I noticed our guide paying our entrance fee, and I noticed how strange it seemed to be paying a fee to enter a monastery. I realised again how privileged I had been to experience the Athonite monasteries. In fact, the contrast was strong with my experience on the Holy Mountain. These monasteries were more geared to tourism as museums of how things used to be (although they all had a small resident community of monks or nuns), while the Athonite monasteries were first and foremost places of contemporary spiritual endeavour and commitment. They were only secondarily places of historical interest or places for guests to visit. I thought how important it is for the number of visitors on Mt Athos to remain limited so that the spiritual work of the monks remains the main thing on Mt Athos.

After a walk through St Stephens we went to Varlaam monastery, which was one of the larger monasteries in the Meteora area. It was wet as we went up through the monastery to the main church (katholikon).

We were not allowed to take photos within the katholikon, so I took this view of the porch outside it.

In former times the only way to enter the monastery had been by a hoist. Now heavy items are still brought in by hoist. We visited the room that housed the hoist apparatus.

Formerly the windlass was used for powering the hoist, but now the hoist is motorised. The hoist lifts things a distance of approximately 15 metres. This was enough of a distance to deter unwanted guests.

As we left the Meteora region the weather cleared, and we finally got the chance to take a more typical photo of one of the pinnacle monasteries. This is a photo from below Roussanou monastery.

We had lunch in Kalambaka at a restaurant that served 'home made food', and where you could go into the kitchen to choose what you wanted.

It was a lovely meal and set us up for the trip back to Athens.

To Athens and the National Archaeological Museum

2010-05-28T00:04:00.003+12:00

17 May, 2010

I flew from Chios to Athens in the morning and I reached my hotel in the early afternoon. The Hotel Aristoteles is a budget hotel in Omonia, one of the roughest parts of the city centre. A Police bus with about 15-20 police officers deployed in riot gear used to be parked at nights at the bottom of our street! (Apparently this was normal and not just because I was there.)

But I was very happy with the hotel itself. The rooms and sheets were clean, the beds were comfortable, there was plenty of hot water and an adequate breakfast included in the relatively very cheap price. I had booked in for just one night, as I was due to go on a four-day guided tour the next morning. Then I was planning to come back to Athens. I was happy enough with the hotel to book to return for three nights after my guided tour.

Once I had settled in I checked out the opening hours of the various museums that I had noted to visit, so that I could go to one that I had time to see (some close at 3pm). I was fortunate that the National Archaeological Museum was very close to my hotel and closed at 7pm. So I headed off to see that.

This museum is very large and houses some of the most important ancient sculpture, pottery, jewellery and other artefacts of Greece (with some also from Egypt). I started with sculptures and some outstanding vases of the archaic (6th century BC) and classical (5th-4th century BC) periods. I took lots of photos – which you are generally allowed to do in Greek museums (as long as you don’t use a flash). Here are just a few of the works that stood out for me.

The first is a grave stele from the mid-6th century. I loved the sense of vital presence this relief sculpture has.

Another favourite was the famous bronze statue of Zeus (or possibly Poseidon). See how beautifully the sculpture is balanced, with the weight at the back supported only on the ball of the foot. This sculpture is dated to around 460BC, and is in the Classical style which typically shows more movement in the body than does the archaic style.

A few of the most beautiful pottery pieces were displayed with the statues, such as the following red-figure stamnos ascribed to the painter Polygnotus, and dated around the period 430-420BC.

I then went on to a series of rooms so full of beautiful painted vases and other pottery that it was almost too much to focus on.

In another room were items from Knossos in Crete and Akrotiri in Thera (the island that is also known as Santorini), dating from around 1700-1400BC. I loved the solidity and decoration of this storage jar from Knossos, and also the simplicity and delicate beauty of the reed decoration on the next vase.

There were also beautiful frescos from palaces in Akrotiri, such as this antelope fresco:

Finally, the highlight was the display of artefacts from Mycenaea. The poems of Homer (the Iliad and the Odyssey) were thought by most people in the 19th century to be merely legends of the past. But others, including Heinrich Schliemann, a wealthy German businessman and self-taught archaeologist, were convinced that Homer was telling his stories with a good deal of historical accuracy. So, as you will have noted from my post of 7-8 May, Schliemann excavated the ‘tell’ of Troy in 1871, looking particularly for ‘Priam’s Treasure’. After this, in 1876,he excavated the site of Mycenae, which Homer calls ‘rich in gold’. Homer tells of five royal graves at Mycenae, and they were particularly what Schliemann was wanting to excavate on this site. Because Homer only mentioned five graves, Schliemann missed a sixth grave, which was excavated later. Unlike the Troy excavation, at Mycenae Schliemann passed on all his finds to the government, and the National Archaeological Museum was built primarily to house these finds.

The following pictures give you an idea of the scale of what he found, although they show only about a quarter of all the golden items from Mycenae displayed at the museum.

The most famous artefact was a golden ‘death mask’ (an imprint of the face of someone who has died). Schliemann named this ‘the mask of Agamemnon’, who was the king of Mycenae and leader of the Greek forces at Troy, although there is no evidence that the mask was made for Agamemnon himself.

There were some examples of Linear B tablets (the earliest form of written Greek, dating back to around 1200BC, when Mycenae was destroyed in a fire). The tablets would normally have been used and reused, but this fire baked hard the clay of the tablets, which were then left buried under dirt and rubble until they were unearthed). The Linear B writing was only deciphered, and proven to be an early form of Greek, in 1953. Unfortunately, the linear B tablets only consist of short lists and legal documents.

This tablet is a list of soldiers, their chiefs and stations, for the defence of the Mycenaean city of Pylos. We know that the Mycenaean cities were being attacked in the thirteenth century BC, but we don’t know by whom. The cities were overrun around 1200BC.

And finally, a piece of Mycenaean pottery caught my fancy, with its lovely and somehow light-hearted painting of an octopus.

I left the museum stunned by the sheer volume of amazing pieces of ancient and classical art that I had seen.

In Chios

2010-05-24T21:11:00.001+12:00

14 May, 2010

When I did my Masters degree in Ancient Greek around 30 years ago, I wrote a short thesis on the history of Chios during the Peloponnesian War (5th century BC) as one of my papers. So I couldn’t come to this part of the world without visiting the island, to gain, first-hand, a sense of its past and its present. There weren’t a huge number of tourist sights for me to see but that was okay. I was mainly wanting to get a feel for the place.

I started the day by arranging to hire a car tomorrow to tour the southern part of the island. Then I visited the Chios archaeological museum. It was interesting to read about the archaeological sites on the island, and to see the variety of artefacts they had in this local museum (no photos allowed).

In the afternoon I got on a local bus that was heading out to some local villages. The villages weren’t highly picturesque, but I was going to see some more ‘touristy’ places the following day. It was simply interesting to see what the local area was like. Here is a picture of the village of Dafnonas, taken from a nearby village, Ziphias.

As I went back to Chios Rooms I took a photo of the building from the harbour front a little way away (the window of my room is on the upper floor of the building, fourth from the left).

The next day I hired a car early in the morning and set off to tour the southern part of the island of Chios. My first destination was a World Heritage site, the Nea Moni monastery that was built in the 11th century. Nea Moni is in the central mountain range between the western and eastern side of Chios (Chios Town is in the southeast). As I climbed up into the mountains I could see the Turkish coast not far away.

The proximity of the island of Chios to Asia Minor and Turkey has had a pronounced effect on its history. While conditions under the rule of the Ottoman Turks were not always bad in Chios, in 1822 there was an uprising against Ottoman rule in the Greek mainland, and a similar uprising was initiated in the islands off the Turkish coast. The Turkish response was brutal. An estimated 70,000 Chians were either killed or sold into slavery in that year. Over 100,000 others fled. According to the sign at Nea Moni, before the massacres of that year, Chios had a population of 180,000 people. After them there were only 1,800 people left on the island.

A memorial to a particular episode of this year is kept in a chapel just inside the gate at Nea Moni. On Good Friday of 1822, 600 monks and 3,500 women and children seeking refuge were all slaughtered at Nea Moni. The skulls of some of those who were killed is kept in a glass cabinet inside this chapel. It is a very sobering sight. (Photos of the gory details available on request. Here is a picture of the gate and the little chapel where the bones were stored.)

Nea Moni is most famous for its 11th century mosaics, undertaken by craftsmen from Constantinople. While the mosaics were severely damaged in an earthquake in 1885, many are still in a sufficient state of repair to be memorable.

The monastery is now home to a small number of nuns. Sunday serviced are held, and I was hoping to come back with Don Rodger (the manager of Chios Rooms) and his family to worship the following day. As I left, the church was being decorated for a baptism.

I went over the mountain range and caught sight of Avgonyma, a village on the eastern side. Avgonyma means “a clutch of eggs”, which is not a bad description of what the village looks like, sitting on the mountain side above the sea.

Further down the mountain I turned right to the village of Anabatos. In 1822, 300 people jumped off the cliff here to avoid being massacred by the Turks.

Anabatos is now pretty much a ghost town, with only a few permanent residents. It was an overcast and gloomy day, and this matched the sombre theme of all these deaths. One thing that raised my spirits was that as I arrived at Anabatos, I saw a priest and some people come out of a little chapel where they had been having a service. A rather hungry donkey nearby looked up hopefully for some food, and a woman fed the donkey with unconsecrated bread, which he munched gratefully. It was touching to see the woman’s kind act.

When I got to the western side of Chios I turned south and drove through the masticochoria - the mastic country. Mastic is a resinous gum that comes from a type of pistachio tree and is used in a wide variety of products.

For some reason, the only place that these trees produce this gum is in the masticochoria in the south of Chios. This product was prized in ancient times and by the Turks as well. It is still actively used today. (There are mastic shops in Chios - but I was surprised to find one in Athens as well.)

One of the chief towns in the masticochoria is Pyrgi, which is distinctive for the decoration of the buildings. I made the mistake of driving into the town with its very narrow streets, and someone had to shift some of the seats from a taverna there for me even to get through. I found the way out and parked on the outskirts. Then I went for a walk and took several photos.

The first place I saw was the local Council Office, which was closed as it was a Saturday. From there I went down one of the narrow streets (I was very happy with this photo) and into the town square.

Note the Obelix Cafe in the square!

I thought Pyrgi was beautiful, but as I was planning to have lunch in the next town, I didn't stay for long. I managed to put together enough Greek to ask a local woman the way to Mesta, and set off for there.

Mesta is a medieval town that was built with walls and in a maze pattern as some protection against the pirates of the area. I remembered my way into the town square from the outside (left-right-left-right) as I wanted to get out again! It is difficult to give a good impression of the maze as I was not flying above the town. Here are some of the views along the little streets.

After lunch I rambled on towards Chios, calling in at Emporio, an ancient archaeological site by the sea, and then going on through the "campos" or countryside south of Chios, which has been planted in citrus groves since Genoese times and is obviously a very up-market area. It seemed beautiful, although a proper view of it was restricted by the high walls of the houses.

I was really happy with this opportunity to "nosey around" the southern part of the island. It gave me a much clearer impression of the landscape and towns of southern and central Chios.

The following day I went with Don, his wife Dina and their son Alexander, and two Swedish women to a service at Nea Moni. It was good to go back to Nea Moni as a worshipper rather than simply a tourist. There were probably around 80 people at worship including quite a few children, and after the service there was a good feeling of community as people lingered to enjoy coffee and cake and to talk. The monastery felt more alive than it did the day before.

I then had a relaxed day as I prepared to get the plane to Athens the next day. I very much enjoyed my stay at Chios Rooms including the connection I made with Don Rodger.

Samos and Patmos

2010-05-21T08:15:00.003+12:00

10-12 May, 2010

This morning I was picked up by my tour company and taken to the ferry at the nearby port town of Kusadasi. The ferry left at 9am and we were in Samos by 11.30am. I asked about the ferry to Patmos, and was told that it went from a different town on Samos Island, so I took a bus there. When I arrived I went into a ferry office and found that the ferry timing that I had expected had changed. The ferry was now leaving later in the afternoon, and there was no return ferry on 13 May, so I would have to leave Patmos on 12 May if I wanted to sail from Samos to Chios on the evening of the 13th.

I got all that sorted out, bought a return ticket to Patmos and as I was doing so, met a very friendly Swedish couple who were on their way to Patmos that afternoon as well. We had our own separate things to do for a while, but agreed to have lunch together later. I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Thomas and Birgitta. I found that we had an amazing amount in common. Thomas, for instance, had been to the Holy Fire ceremony in Jerusalem on a previous Easter Eve, and they had both been to the Ethiopian Orthodox Easter Eve service there. They were active Christians, and Thomas had brought with him a book to read that is one of my all time favourites – God of Surprises, by Gerard Hughes. They are both teachers and Birgitta makes her own clothes and bags and teaches handcrafts as well as being a general class teacher for 11-13 year olds. I felt sure that Helen would have enjoyed their company too, and that she would have a lot in common with Birgitta.

We caught the ferry together, and I took a photo of them during the journey.

When we got to Patmos, we went our separate ways as they had booked accommodation and I was going to the monastery of St John (founded in 1088), on the top of the hill above the town.

Since it was now 8pm, I was in some doubt as to whether it was reasonable to turn up to the monastery at this hour, and on stepping onto the dock I was delighted to see a woman holding up a card with my name on it. This was Anastasia, from the Centre for Orthodox Culture and Information in town. She took me to the centre, phoned the monastery driver, and he came and picked me up! I am sure that I owe this special welcome to the fact that I had faxed, along with my request to stay, a supporting letter from the Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of New Zealand, Archbishop Amfilochios.

The next morning, after worship, I had an appointment with the abbot, who is a personal friend of Archbishop Amfilochios from New Zealand. We had a nice meeting, with some very helpful translation done by another visitor to the monastery. The Abbot, the proper term of address for whom I was not certain(!), kindly gave me a book he had written on the monastery, and I gave him a holding cross from New Zealand.

After our meeting, our translator, whose name was Costas, took me to see the icon restoration workshop in the monastery (two people are employed here full-time) and the monastery museum and treasury. The visit to the icon restoration workshop was very interesting, and the museum was impressive, with one of the monastery treasures being an early (fifth century) text of Mark’s gospel, of which two pages were on display. There were many other treasures as well, including a range of icons, illuminated texts, church vestments, chalices etc, edicts form various rulers, and other artefacts. Among the icons a lovely, but slightly damaged, icon by El Greco stood out. Again no photos were allowed.

Later on I headed down to the cave of the Apocalypse, the place where St John is believed to have dictated the Book of Revelation to Prochoros, his assistant and scribe. I managed to arrive at a time when only a few people were there (no photos again!), but as I stayed to soak up the atmosphere of the place there was a sudden influx of people from various tour groups.

I decided to seek the quiet of the monastery and I climbed back up the hill, taking a photo of the monastery as I went.

I also met this local resident along the way.

It wasn't a very big snake, but I have to admit that snakes are not my favourite creatures to come across on a country walk!

When I got back to the monastery, I went to Vespers. I then took some photos in the late afternoon sun,

and following that I spent time reading a book on Orthodoxy before the night prayers at 9pm.

In the morning I rose to attend the prayers and Holy Liturgy. The chanting of the Orthodox liturgy affected me more powerfully today than at any time since the Armenian liturgy on Good Friday in Jerusalem. I felt drawn into God's presence. At the end of the liturgy, as one of the monks (whom I had never met) left the church, he placed his hand on my shoulder. Again this gesture, from someone I could not communicate with through words, meant a lot. He seemed to be saying something like, “It’s good to see you here”, or “I hope you find what you are looking for”. It was a gesture of encouragement and connection.

After the service I went to take some photos of the monastery at a time when I would not be pushing my camera into the face of the monks.

This photo looks down at the courtyard just outside the katholikon (main church).

And this is the front of the katholikon.

I then took a bus down to the town so that I would be ready for my ferry. The harbour looked beautiful.

I boarded the ferry and before long we were back in Samos. I caught a bus to Samos town, and waited for the next bus to Karlovassi, from where the Chios ferries sail. The bus trip to Karlovassi took us past some picturesque seaside villages. (During the trip I had another of those incongruous moments while travelling, as was watching from the window the heavenly view of the Greek coast and sitting next to a young Indian man who was loudly playing Bollywood clips on his mobile phone.) Karlovassi itself was more of a town than a village, and had quite a busy port. I found some accommodation for the night in a cheap hotel and had dinner at a little restaurant on the sea shore.

The next day, as I was simply in transit and didn’t have anything that I wanted to see in the surrounding district, I spent most of my time writing up my diary and preparing for my next few blogs. I caught the ferry at 6.45pm and was in Chios before 10pm. I was immediately struck by the vitality of the night life on the waterfront. It had the feel of a bustling town (I found out later that a part of the University of the Aegean is situated in Chios, so there are a large number of students here.) I found Chios Rooms, my accommodation in Chios, and had a chat with Don Rodger, the New Zealand owner/manager. My room was overlooking the waterfront, so I took a photo or two from my window, and then went to bed.

Selcuk and Ephesus

2010-05-18T08:13:00.000+12:00

9 May, 2010

I was ready for my Ephesus tour at the appointed pick up time of 9am the next day, but the tour guide didn’t arrive. I waited for 30 minutes and he still had not arrived, so I was not too pleased. With time passing and a bus for Ephesus about to leave from my hotel, I decided to catch that, and I texted my contact in the tour company to say that I wanted to have a talk with him that evening but that I was off to Ephesus now.

I had a nice visit to Ephesus, which was a very interesting site in a fairly good state of preservation. The Jerash site I saw in Jordan was probably a bit better preserved, but because of its connection with St Paul and the early history of Christianity, Ephesus had more significance for me. Among the places I saw in Ephesus was an impressive monument known as the ‘Library of Celsus’.

On the steps outside the Library of Celsus, an image of a Jewish menorah has been etched into the stone. This is probably because the Library was used at some stage as a Jewish synagogue.

It is intriguing to think that this might have been where Paul met with the Jews of Ephesus, and for a period of 3 months (until opposition grew in the synagogue because of the number of people being influenced by Paul), spoke to them about the Messiah. After that, he met with believers and enquirers in the lecture hall of Tyrannus, a location that has not been identified. Paul and his companions were so effective in their evangelistic ministry that it threatened the market for statues and shrines of the goddess Artemis. (The local Temple of Artemis was considered one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world, and many tourists visited Ephesus because of it.) Acts 19:23-41 tells of a riot that took place in the city, led by silversmiths who were concerned about their livelihood with the decline in the number of worshippers of Artemis. A silversmith, Demetrius, blamed Paul for the threat to their livelihood, and so they began to riot and dragged a couple of Paul’s fellow-workers, Gaius and Aristarchus to the huge theatre, shouting, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians”.

For two hours the mob shouted this same chant, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians”, until they were warned to disperse by the city clerk.

From the theatre I went to the ruins of the Church of the Virgin Mary, which is on the Ephesus site. (I overtook this little fellow on the way.)

The church was huge, and was the setting for the Council of Ephesus in 431. Here we are looking from the courtyard (atrium) beyond the entrance to the nave. The apse is right up the far end where you can see two columns and the top of a third.

I went from this great church to another great church – the Church of St John in Selcuk, built in the grand style by Justinian over a smaller Constantinian church. The Justinian church is in the shape of a cross and measured 130m by 65m.

As with my photo of the Church of the Virgin Mary, this photo is taken from the atrium beyond the main entrance to the nave, looking towards the apse. Before the eye reaches the apse there are some columns. These surround the tomb of St John.

Once I had finished here I went into Selcuk town and visited the Ephesus Museum. In this museum were some fine artefacts from Ephesus. One of the items I liked most was this small picture of Socrates.

There was also a statue of Artemis of the Ephesians with the protuberances on her front probably meant to be eggs as a symbol of fertility.

After this visit and after buying a couple of presents, I headed back to my hotel. I received the phone call I had requested from a manager of the Tour company, who explained that he had phoned the hotel to advise them the guide would be coming at 9.30am. The staff person in the hotel whom he spoke had not passed the message on. In the end the manager offered me a substantial refund on my tour costs. He obviously did care about the various muck ups and made what I thought was a generous settlement. I was glad that I had sorted this out myself rather than waiting to get back to New Zealand and trying to sort the matter out from there.

I enjoyed my time in Turkey. I found the people extraordinarily friendly and helpful, even if in Istanbul after being helpful they wanted you to buy something at their shop! In other parts of Turkey it wasn’t like that. People just went out of their way to help if they could speak any English or German and I looked confused or was obviously trying to find somewhere on a map. I never felt unsafe and thought that Turkey was a great place for a holiday.

After all the time I had spent studying Greek culture, I found it a little odd that the custodians of so many wonderful classical sites (more than in Greece, they claim) are Turkish! But that was my issue, not theirs. The problem with the Tour came, I believe, from the tour company’s idea that public transport was an acceptable alternative for a guided tour, without even discussing it with me. But the tour manager was open to admitting that they had got it wrong, and I felt that he sorted the matter out quite generously.

While I did not have in Turkey the sort of amazing experiences I had in Jerusalem and Mt Athos, I still thought that it was a very worthwhile place to visit.

On tour in Turkey

2010-05-18T06:18:00.001+12:00

7-8 May

I was picked up at my hotel shortly after 6.30am for my 2-day tour from Istanbul to Selcuk via Gallipoli, Canakkale, Troy and Pergamum. It turned out that there were only 3 others the bus picked up that morning – a man from China who was going straight through to Troy, and a couple form Marton - Jill and Tom Willis, who knew my parents in law, Howard and Joan Jones. I really enjoyed talking with them on the journey to Gallipoli, which was a 4-5 hour bus ride. Along the way, I realised that Tom and Jill were going back to Istanbul that night – and with the Chinese man going straight to Troy, I was the only one on my 2-day guided tour. (More of this later!)

After a nice lunch in Eceabat, we went on to Gallipoli. One of the first things we did was to visit the museum. I was particularly struck by a display of bullets that had been struck by other bullets – indicating the intensity of the gunfire with a hail of bullets coming from both sides. For some peculiar reason I didn’t take a photo of them! So here is a file photo from the internet (much lower resolution than mine I'm sorry to say).

My attention was also caught by a letter that one soldier had written to his family, saying that no one had been killed and only 3 people had been wounded in the withdrawal from Gallipoli in December, 1915. My grandfather Onslow, who died when I was around 18 months old, apparently used to say that he was one of the last people wounded on Gallipoli. He was riding on a gun carriage that was being taken off shore, when he was shot in the leg. So he was probably one of those 3 soldiers recorded as being wounded in the withdrawal.

Next, we drove down past Brighton Beach to ANZAC cove. It was noticeably steep just up from ANZAC cove, whereas Brighton Beach, where the troops were supposed to land, led to a low-lying plain and easier access to the summit of the mountain overlooking the peninsula. The reason they landed in the wrong place was apparently because the marker they were using to mark the landing spot washed down the coast in a storm before the date of the landing! That seems to have been typical of the shoddy planning of this campaign.

From there we went to the Lone Pine Memorial, which is particularly focused on the Australian forces. The next stop was to look at the closeness of the trenches at one point just next to the modern road to the top of the ridge. The Turkish and allied trenches at this point were no more than 8 metres distant from one another!

Next we stopped at the 57th regiment Turkish memorial (in Turkey the 57th regiment became famous because of the self-sacrifice shown by its soldiers. Not one man from the regiment survived the Turkish defence of Gallipoli). Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who appears on statues and posters throughout Turkey, is acknowledged as the father of the modern state. He was the first Turkish Prime Minister in the 1920s and was significant in the Gallipoli campaign as the Turkish officer commanding the defending troops (a German officer in overall command of the defence entrusted it to Kemal). Not only did he have great military ability, he had a remarkable ability to give words and meaning to the sacrifice that was being made by the Turkish troops. On the 57th regiment memorial, you can read the following words:

To the allied soldiers who died in the Gallipoli campaign and to their mothers, Ataturk wrote, “Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives…you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours. You, the mothers who sent your sons from far away countries, wipe away your tears. Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are at peace. After having lost their lives in this land, they have become our sons as well.”

From my brief time in Turkey I got the impression that Ataturk was one of the truly great leaders of the 20th century, not only successfully defending his country against various military incursions, but also reforming it and making it into a modern state. I look forward to reading more about him when I return to New Zealand.

Finally, we went up to the top of the hill to visit Chunuk Bair. When English and French troops landed at Souvla Bay, some distance away from this high point, after the first Gallipoli landing, the Turks concentrated their defence against them. (Here you can see Souvla Bay in the distance.)

While they were doing this, some New Zealand and Gurkha troops came up behind them and took Chunuk Bair, the highest point and chief objective of all the fighting in the Gallipoli campaign. The strategic view was that those who held Chunuk Bair would hold the peninsula. But the Turkish troops rallied and attacked time and again, so that without reinforcements the troops that had taken the position were in real difficulty. They held out for one day, and then on the second day they were pushed back by the Turkish soldiers – and the allied advance on the Gallipoli peninsula was effectively over. The stalemate that resulted led eventually to the withdrawal of the allied troops.

All of the above left me with feelings of sadness about the pointlessness of the campaign, admiration for Kemal Ataturk and the Turkish soldiers, admiration too for the bravery of the allied soldiers, dismay about some of the terrible decisions made by the allied commanders, all mixed in with a sense that this was an important visit to make – both as a New Zealander, and as the grandson of a veteran of the campaign.

After this visit I was taken to Eceabat and was handed a ticket for the ferry to Canakkale. The tour company obviously thought that doing a whole tour for one person was uneconomic, so without discussing it with me, they had decided that I would travel on public transport and have company personnel meet me at various points. The only trouble was that at some points they failed to meet me or to provide things that had clearly been part of the tour they had promised me. It was actually a bit of a comedy of errors, and not a disaster because I got to my destinations, but it was odd to have decisions made about changes to my tour without being consulted.
In naïve expectation that someone would be waiting to meet me off the ferry, I took the ferry to Canakkale. But after having waited for 20 minutes or so outside the ferry terminal I asked someone for directions to my hotel, the name of which I had been told, and the person kindly walked me over to it. It was 3 minutes walk away! The hotel was the nicest one I had stayed at so far – a boutique hotel in an old Turkish house. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

That night I watched the Mel Gibson Gallipoli film, had dinner and did some planning for my visit to Patmos. The next morning I was getting concerned when my guide for my Troy tour did not turn up at the right time, so the hotel receptionist kindly phoned the tour company and the guide arrived a few minutes later.

People had said that there was not much to see at Troy, but in fact my visit to Troy was one of the highlights of my trip so far. I had a personal guided tour, and the guide did a great job of explaining the site to me. I will not bore you with a lengthy description of his explanations, and the site itself does not have many grand monuments to show, but there is good evidence of the various stages of walls on the Troy ‘tell’ or mound.

Heinrich Schliemann was famously the first person to excavate Troy, in the 19th century. Archaeology was only in its infancy, and although Schliemann in some ways was ahead of his time, his basic approach was to look for the “treasure of Priam” that he thought was buried somewhere on the site. So he dug a trench that was rather like a bulldozer trench straight through the tell, obliterating virtually everything in its way, and destroying a lot of evidence in the process.

Eventually Schliemann did find some treasure and spirited it out of the country, contrary to an agreement he had with the Turkish government of the time!

The various ‘layers’ or ‘levels’ of the city are noted in the above picture. Scholars differ as to whether the Troy that was destroyed by the Greeks was the 6th or 7th level, with most scholars considering that the city that was destroyed was level 7B. Apparently the walls of this level were once around 22 feet high. Here are some remains from this wall.

Note the stones that have been specially chiselled to allow other stones to inter-lock with them (you can see 2 examples at the top left), thereby making the wall stronger.

The outlook from the tell gave a clear reason why Troy became a major city. It was within sight of the Hellespont, and therefore presided over important trade routes between Asia and Europe. The following picture shows the sea quite far away, but in ancient times it was much closer to the city.

Having studied both the Iliad and the Odyssey of Homer when I took ancient Greek at university, it was a real pleasure to see Troy and to have the site interpreted for me.

After the tour, I was taken back to Canakkale to get a bus to Bergama (Pergamum) which was my next stop. Unfortunately I just missed the bus, and taking the next bus and going by public transport meant that I reached Pergamum shortly before 5pm. The person who met me off the bus was not a guide and told me that the Pergamum site closed at 6pm, so we raced up the hill and I took a quick look around this impressive site before connecting with my driver and being taken back to the bus.

(This is the Sanctuary of Trajan, built in the second century AD).

I was put on a bus to Izmir, and from there needed to transfer to a bus to Selcuk, where I was going to stay close to the ancient city of Ephesus. As I had missed out on both the guided tour of Pergamum and the lunch that had been a specified part of my tour, I contacted the tour company by mobile phone from the bus, to try and reach some alternative arrangement. I agreed with the company that I would get a guided tour and lunch for my planned Ephesus trip tomorrow, which I had been going to do independently. The bus conductor kindly guided me from the Izmir bus to the bus to Selcuk. and I got to my hotel around 10pm. The Nazar Hotel was a very nice budget hotel, and I was glad to be there, especially after the uncertainties of my travel that day.

Istanbul

2010-05-17T04:10:00.003+12:00

4-6 May

As the Istanbul metro was not working when I arrived, and the train station was not far from the Sultanahmet area in which my hotel was, I walked up the hill to Sultanahmet. There is a lot of tourist accommodation in Sultanahmet, because so many of the key sites are in this area – the great cathedral of Hagia Sophia, which was converted into a mosque and is now a museum, the Basilica Cistern, the Blue Mosque, the hippodrome and the Topkapi Palace, to name just the main ones.

I got to the hotel after asking for directions a few times, and was given a hospitable welcome and a very adequate room with a double bed. Luxury! I decided that I would take the day fairly easily, so I did a few chores, spent some time on the computer, and then had a sleep. In the evening I had arranged to have dinner with Nancy Woodburn, a course member from the Bible and its Setting course, and her daughter Anna, who were in Turkey. This was their final night in the country. We had a lovely evening and a delicious meal together.

The next day I set off early for Hagia Sophia, the cathedral of Constantinople during the time of the Roman Empire in the East, until Constantinople was captured by the Turks and it was turned into a mosque (hence the four minarets). This Church was built by the Emperor Justinian in the sixth century AD, and for 1,000 years was the largest building in the world.

It is an awesome and remarkable building, with the beautiful dome sitting majestically above it. In fact, with the windows shedding light into the dome, the dome almost seems to hover over the building rather than to weigh down upon it.

Apparently it was the flexible resin in the mortar between the stones that has kept the dome intact through countless earthquakes over 15 centuries.

When Constantinople was taken by the Turks in 1452, they immediately converted Hagia Sophia into a mosque. But in 1932, on the recommendation of Kemal Ataturk, it ceased to be a place of worship and was officially designated as a museum, thereby making it more accessible to Christians. Elements sacred to both Muslim and Christian worshippers have been retained.

In the photo above you can see quotations from the Qur’an in Arabic script and the mihrab (niche that points to Mecca) in the apse – the former Christian sanctuary. Just under the dome you can also see depictions of the six-winged seraphs (in one of these the face has now been revealed - it was formerly plastered over in keeping with Islamic prohibitions on the depiction of creatures).

The Turks are now renovating the building, and more and more of the Christian elements that had been painted or plastered over are being revealed. Chief among these are some beautiful mosaics. From the left, this mosaic depicts the Virgin Mary (Theotokos), Jesus Christ, and John the Baptist (the Forerunner).

The beauty of these mosaics can be seen even more clearly ‘close up’.

And I thought the expression on the face of John the Forerunner (John the Baptist) was particularly beautiful.

It is probably revealingly partisan of me, but I have something to admit here. While acknowledging the generous spirit of Ataturk in converting this from a mosque to a museum, and while greatly enjoying my visit to Hagia Sophia, I still felt a pang of sadness that this majestic expression of Christian faith had been put to other uses than the purpose of Christian worship for which it was originally intended.

After a break I went to the underground ‘Basilica Cistern’, which despite the name is not particularly associated with Hagia Sophia. It was built in the reign of Justinian to hold water for the city, and to store it in case of siege or drought. The water was brought by aqueduct to the city from a water source 19kms away. The cistern is huge – 140 metres long by 70 metres wide, thus covering a total area of 9,800 square metres. The 336 marble columns of the cistern are 9 metres high.

The cistern is partially lit so that people can get some idea of its size.

Following this visit I headed off to the Blue Mosque, which had been built in the 15th century AD, after the capture of Constantinople. This was a beautiful building with amazing tile work and lovely stained glass windows.

I made my way home via the old Constantinople hippodrome. This has been converted into a promenade, but still retains a few important monuments from imperial times. The first one is partly broken, but highly significant for anyone like me who has studied classical Greek. It is a column formed by 3 intertwined bronze serpents and dedicated to Apollo by the 31 city states who defeated the Persians in the battle of Plataea in 480BC. This victory was an incredibly important ‘coming of age’ for the ancient Greeks. It brought in the great flowering of the classical period in Athens, with its buildings, sculpture and art, drama, poetry, historical and other writing, and so on. I was amazed to see the monument, because I didn’t know that it still existed.

The second monument is an obelisk from the time of Egyptian Pharoah Tuthmose III (1479-1426BC). It was brought to Constantinople in the reign of Theodosius in the late fourth century and erected in this place, but it is in such a fine state of preservation that it looks as if it was sculpted in the last few years.

After all this sightseeing, it was time for a break, so I took it easy for the rest of the day.

The next day I was up early again for a day of museum visiting. I headed off for the Topkapi Palace, which had been the residence of the Turkish Sultans, along with their harem and entourage.

The Palace was magnificent, with beautiful buildings, and outstanding collections of jewellery and other precious things. Again, a few photos will have to suffice to give you some idea. No photos were allowed in the Treasury areas, so if you are interested, take a look on Google for some of the treasures of the Topkapi palace. They are amazing!

I went first to the harem and private rooms of the Sultan. The rooms of the Queen Mother in the harem were very impressive. The Ottoman decoration is from the 17th century and the Western influences are from the 19th century.

The Imperial Hall served both as the Sultan’s official reception area and as the entertainment hall for the harem.

The private rooms of Sultan Murad III, built by the famous architect Sinan in 1578, are considered among the finest examples of Ottoman architecture.

The apartments of the Crown Prince were also gorgeous, with the beautiful stained glass windows being complemented by matching tiles.

and so it went on. One room surpassed another in beauty, and one treasure outshone the previous one in opulence. There was also a magnificent view over the Bosphorus from the palace.

Along with the huge number of Topkapi treasures, there was a beautiful visiting exhibition on display – 5,000 years of Japanese Art. No photos were allowed at this exhibition, but very memorable amongst the items in the Japanese collection were two beautiful early Buddhist statues (one of lacquered wood, one of stone) depicting human figures in an attitude of prayer. They communicated in a wonderful way a spirit of serenity and inner peace.

After the Topkapi Palace I went to the Archaeology Museums close by. I had been told that they were good, but I was not prepared for how wonderful they were. They were amazing – with exhibitions of beautiful sarcophagi, grave stones and artefacts from Greek, Hittite and other Anatolian civilisations, exhibitions from Egypt, Cyprus, Troy, the Byzantine Empire, and so on. Unfortunately my camera battery ran out along the way, so some of the most impressive ancient Anatolian and Egyptian items I didn’t record.

The exhibitions started with sarcophagi from a royal necropolis (cemetery) in Sidon (modern Lebanon) found in the late 19th century. This sarcophagus dates from the 4th century BC.

Here is some of it as it would have looked before the original paint peeled off.

There were many grand and beautiful sarcophagi, but also more touching and personal monuments to the dead. I thought the following wording was moving: “Philippos has erected this stele for his wife Tryphaine, who was his heart’s content.” And another stele caught my attention too.

It reads, “His owner has buried the dog Parthenope that he played with, in gratitude for this happiness. [Mutual] love is rewarding, like the one for this dog. Having been a friend to my owner, I have deserved this grave.”

The exhibitions certainly weren’t by any means all focused on death. This beautiful pottery was made in Cyprus between 1050 and 750BC.

And there were other remarkable exhibits. I took almost 8 hours looking at the exhibitions at the Topkapi Museum and Archaeology Museums, and if I had had an extra day in Istanbul I might even have gone back to the Archaeology Museums to photograph more of the Sumerian, Assyrian and Egyptian a

rtefacts. If you get the chance to go, don’t miss them – and take a spare camera battery!

Xenophontos Monastery and Onwards

2010-05-17T03:25:00.004+12:00

2-4 May

I took a few photos of the little port village of Dafni, bought my ticket at the Customs and ticket office, and waited.

As I sat, I smiled at an old Greek man who had come in the same bus with me from Simonos Petras. He smiled back, and as he passed he patted my head. I have had a lot of kindness from men of all ages on this trip. It has been very interesting being in a ‘men only’ zone. The sense of brotherhood has been strong. Here there are well over 1,000 – perhaps even 2,000 – men all seeking to deepen their relationship with God.

The ferry came at the expected time, and before long I stepped out on the wharf of Xenofontos monastery. I watched the ferry leave,

and then walked along to the monastery gate.

As I entered I noticed a sign saying that people were asked not to come during the week of 2-8 May as the monks were preparing for a Patronal feast day. Oops! That would explain why only 4 people got off the ferry. Still I had received a fax saying that I was welcome, so I continued on up the stairs and went into the guest house.

I was greeted by a monk who did not speak much English. He showed me to my room and gave me a rough idea of the programme of the monastery. The few other guests did not speak English either, so it was clear that I was going to be doing my own thing pretty much during this time. I decided that I would take a walk along the beach. I took a photo looking back towards the monastery. My room was in the building further away, where the 5th and 6th windows from the right are, just where the building extends out above the wall.

I also took a photo of the sea, as it reminded me of words from the classical Greek poet Aeschylus’ play, ‘The Persians’, where he speaks of ‘the limitless laughter of the sea’ (anarithmon pontou gelasmon).

I went to the service at 5pm and then on to dinner. After dinner I heard someone speaking in English. The speaker was a Canadian man, who was a retired professor of medieval art history and who had been coming to the Holy Mountain for 25 years. He was well known to the monks at Xenophontos monastery and was staying for 7 weeks. We had quite a long chat and it was interesting to meet him and to hear what he had to say. Then I watched a beautiful sunset from the guest house balcony.

The next day I attended the morning services and had breakfast. After that I took some photos within the monastery, as this was permitted. I took the next two photos in the early morning light, before the sun was really up. The first is of the central courtyard and the second is of the lower courtyard looking at the monks rooms.

A little later, the sun was shining more brightly, and the garden looked lovely.

You can see from the photos above how beautifully maintained the monastery is.

Early in the afternoon I left the monastery and caught the ferry back to Ouranoupoli, picked up my large suitcase from my hotel, and caught the bus back to Thessaloniki. On the bus was an English man whom I had meet at Simonos Petras. Fr Gregory had been an Anglican priest but was now an Antiochene Orthodox priest, ministering in Manchester, who had been visiting Mt Athos. We had a lovely conversation for the more than 2 hours it took to reach our bus station in Thessaloniki. I then took a bus to the train station, bought a ticket for the overnight train to Istanbul, and waited a few hours for the train.

This wait gave me time to have dinner and also to do some initial processing of my time at Mt Athos. It had been an extraordinary privilege to experience a part of our world that is totally set aside for prayer and the worship of God, and one that is so rich in natural and human-created beauty. Because there were few English speakers where I had gone, I had been pretty much left to my own resources, but that was okay, and besides I wasn’t on my own. I was on pilgrimage – a time of journeying spent consciously in the company of God. If I ever get the chance to go again, I would jump at it, and of the monasteries that I visited, the one that I would most like to return to is Simonos Petras. I experienced this as the high point of my visit to the Holy Mountain not just because it was so arrestingly beautiful, but because of the warmth of the hospitality and the experience I had of connection with Fr Makarios who spoke to me about prayer. All of this helped me to connect both with the place and with God in a very special way.

The train arrived around 7.30pm. There were not many passengers, so I had the sleeping car all to myself. I slept fitfully throughout the train trip, and was awake at aunrise to take photos of the beautiful countryside through which we were travelling.

We got into Istanbul around 9.15am.

The Holy Monastery of Simonos Petras

2010-05-17T03:07:00.002+12:00

1-2 May, 2010

After prayer and breakfast the next day, I left Vatopedi monastery for the holy monastery of Simonos Petras. This was close to the port of Dafni, so I planned to take a bus to Dafni and a ferry from there. When I got there, because 1 May is a Greek holiday I was not quite sure whether the ferry timetable would run as planned, and I could not find anyone to ask who could tell me the answer in English. So as I had enjoyed my walk from Karyes to Vatopedi, I decided to walk again. This time, instead of going along and down, the road went up and up – and up.

I was pretty tired by the time the road levelled out, but I enjoyed the view.

What I didn’t know is that a bus comes and goes to Simonos Petras monastery and I could have caught that! A bus passed by but it was full! Never mind, despite a few aches, I was really quite happy to walk as it was part of that whole thing of going on pilgrimage. And also I had again that wonderful sense of suddenly seeing my destination. It was truly awe-inspiring.

The Holy monastery of Simonos Petra is set 1,000 feet above the water, to give added protection against the pirates and other attackers that used to plague the monasteries of the Holy Mountain.

As I gazed at it I thought that Peter Jackson could hardly have imagined it in a Lord of the Rings film, but this was real. Once again, there was scaffolding here as upgrading work was being done to this monastery. But when I reached the monastery, I found was that much of it was in a beautiful state of repair. It was truly out of this world.

I received a warm welcome from the Guest Master who spoke good English, and just as at Vatopedi, this monk explained the programme for the monastery. I asked here whether I could speak to a monk about the Jesus prayer, and he said that he would arrange it. After Vespers and dinner we had the veneration of the relics and then Fr Makarios, a French monk who spoke good English took me aside so that we could have a conversation, which I found both helpful and inspiring. It occurred to me as we spoke that the Orthodox emphasis on veneration of the holy helps them to grow in the love and worship of God. I certainly thought that we could do with a bit more veneration of what is holy in the Anglican Church in New Zealand.

The next morning I got up early for the liturgy, which went from before I arrived at 5.30am till about 9am (it was a Sunday after all!). Then we had lunch! After that the Guest Master invited all the guests up to the reception room and proceeded to give us all a CD and a book. I really felt blessed by this visit. I received so much from the beauty of the place and the worship, from my conversation with Fr Makarios, and then in a book on prayer by one of the monastery’s elders and in a beautiful CD of worship music. I felt very humbled by all these gifts.

One of the monks then took us by bus to Dafni, where I needed to wait for a couple of hours for the ferry to the final monastery on monastery, the holy monastery of Xenophon – known more generally as Xenophontos monastery.

The Great and Holy Monastery of Vatopedi

2010-05-15T02:59:00.002+12:00

29-30 April, 2010
On my journey from the administrative centre of Karyes to the Vatopedi monastery, the signposts were good at times along the walking track.

At other times the sign posts were not so clear. But at one of those times I felt very much that God was looking after me. Just as I took a wrong turning down a road some monks passed in a car, and I asked them for directions, just to be sure. They pointed me back to the right path.

The path through the forest was very pretty. There were some grand views,

but most of the time it was just beautifully quiet with bird song and insects the only noises to be heard, and the spring flowers along the path and various shades of green from the trees the main sights to be enjoyed.

Occasionally I caught sight of a dwelling (skete) along the way,

but apart from that and the occasional monastery in the distance or car as I walked down a road, I was alone. I thoroughly enjoyed the walk, which was very beautiful on a beautiful day.

After about 3 hours walk, I rounded a corner in the path and saw Vatopedi bay set out below me with the monastery down by the sea.

It took me a while to get down to sea level, and some of the way I walked down the road to the monastery. As I walked along, I noticed the amount of marble as rubble on the roads, and there was obviously quite a lot of marble among the rock in the mountains. I picked up some small pieces as mementos of my time in Athos.

I got down to the monastery around 5pm, so the prediction I had been given of the time it would take me to walk was very accurate.

I received a friendly welcome from the monk at the gate and he outlined the ‘programme’ of the monastery. 5.30pm dinner, and 6pm veneration of the relics today, then tomorrow, 4am Matins, 6.30am Eucharist, 8am breakfast, 4.30pm Vespers, 5.30pm dinner and 6pm veneration of the relics. As a non-Orthodox person, I was only allowed in the first room of the church during worship at this monastery (but would be allowed to see the main church later). Some of the monks positioned themselves in the first room as well, so I was never the only person there.

The abbot at Vatopedi had given an instruction that no photos were to be taken within the walls of the monastery, so I followed that instruction, which means that you will not get an idea here of the size of the monastery. I can say though, that 109 monks are at Vatopedi, and many of them are young. There seems to be a real revival of Orthodox monasticism (both male and female) at the moment. And with this renewed vitality, and money from the European Union to repair and restore the monasteries, there is a strong sense of renewal not only at Vatopedi but throughout the Holy Mountain.

After dinner, I was given a tour of the main church (katholikon) by one of the monks, and was shown the holy relics, including relics of St John Chrysostom, a very famous 4th century Patriarch of Constantinople, and some icons with which recent miracles had been associated. I am not sure what I think about these things. It is certainly not my tradition to venerate relics and icons, but I can clearly see the faith and holiness of life of people who do. One Orthodox teaching that can help understanding here is that they believe that as God intended us to be a integrated whole both physical and spiritual, so a person’s body can become holy, not just a person’s spirit. The Orthodox believe that that person’s earthly remains still participate in that holiness. The holiness of matter can extend as far as the matter that is used to depict something deeply holy, such as Jesus Christ, his mother, Mary, the Theotokos (mother of God), or the saints.

I went to bed early and rose to attend the morning prayers. Obviously, with it all being in Greek, I didn’t understand much at all, but just let the prayer and chanting wash over and around me. Following breakfast I did some washing, read a brief guide to the monastery and then went for a walk on the other side of the monastery from the way I had come. Again there were beautiful spring flowers.

and a lovely view of the monastery and its lands.

I had a sense that I was looking at a medieval monastery, in the sense that this monastery had the vitality that Western European monasteries had had in the Middle Ages. This monastery was so ancient and yet so alive and spiritually active. I had a mysterious sense of being both in the past and in the present at the same time.

I went back up above the monastery on the other side to try to take a photo that showed its size. This is the photo I took.

When I returned to the monastery I joined in the Vesper prayers, had dinner, and then met the Guest Master who invited me to join a tour of the monastery treasury later that evening. The tour was simply amazing. It would have been nice to have a camera! The treasures include ancient illuminated manuscripts that look as if they were printed yesterday. There were early Bible texts as well, glorious icons and many other precious objects.

There were two items in the treasury that stood out for me. The first was a miniature icon of Christ on the cross made out of tiny mosaic stones. The workmanship was exquisite and unless you looked closely you would not have recognised that it was a mosaic, the expressions of Christ and those around the cross were so finely represented. A second item was a calyx, a large bowl-shaped chalice made out of jasper, a type of stone, and set in gold. The jasper was so thin that you could see the light through it. The guest master said that the monastery had recently tried to get a copy of this done so that it might go on display. But none of the master craftsmen they approached was willing to try to replicate it. It was such fine workmanship that they did not think they would be able to reproduce it. As I recall, the original was made in the thirteenth or fourteenth century and 600 years later and with all our modern technology people cannot do comparable work!

Towards the Holy Mountain

2010-05-15T02:32:00.001+12:00

28-29 April, 2010

I slept for most of the flight from Athens to Thessaloniki, but towards the end I woke up suddenly and looked out the window. There I was sure I could see my destination – the Athos (eastern) finger of the three-fingered Chalkidiki peninsula. This area is often simply called Mt Athos after the name of mountain at its southern end, or ‘the Holy Mountain’, because it is an area totally dedicated to monasteries and to prayer.

When I got to Thessaloniki I caught a taxi to the bus station and then waited for a bus connection to Ouranoupoli, on the border of the Mt Athos area. Mt Athos is a part of Greece, but is separately administered by Othodox monks under an edict given by the Emperor in Constantinople 1,000 years ago! I was going to Mt Athos to continue my pilgrimage and my encounter with Eastern orthodoxy.

On the bus to Ouranoupoli I caught another view of the mountain. It was almost magnetic in its attraction.

Ouranoupoli is beautiful in itself – a lovely seaside town. It is also the main stopping point for monks and pilgrims heading to the monasteries on the Holy Mountain. There are over 20 monasteries and some smaller establishments or hermitages on the Athos peninsula, which is home to a total of perhaps 2,000 monks. Each day up to 90 Orthodox pilgrims and up to 10 non-Orthodox pilgrims are permitted to enter this area for a 4-day (3 night) period. (The numbers are limited so that it doesn’t just become a tourist destination but so that prayer will continue to be the main focus of the area.) I was privileged to be one of the 10 non-Orthodox pilgrims due to enter the Holy Mountain on 29 April. The monks do not allow women to enter the peninsula. There are explanations of this that relate to the area’s dedication to the Virgin Mary (the Theotokos – mother of God) but I suspect that it is more to help the monks to be single-minded in their devotion to prayer. Murray – this must be the ultimate centre for men’s spirituality in the world!

I found the hotel that I had booked, had a bit of a walk around the town, found a place to have dinner and went to bed early.

The next morning I got up and headed off for the Athos Pilgrim’s Bureau, where I needed to collect my entry permit. The office opened at 7.30am, and well trained by my Jerusalem experiences, I got there early and was the first to get my permit. I went back to the hotel, finished packing and had breakfast. I left my large suitcase at the hotel and headed off to board the ferry. By about 10am we were leaving the dock.

We headed down the coast you can see in the photo above, and as we travelled the scenery was stunningly beautiful.

Athos is a wilderness area, and it was spring, so the wild-flowers were out.

I took lots of photos – but the above ones will have to suffice in giving you an idea of how beautiful the land and seascape were.

It was the Easter season (after Easter Sunday and before Pentecost), and one of the monasteries we passed (Panteleimon) was Russian. As the ferry docked, the greeting went up from a man on the wharf ‘Christos voskryese’ (Christ is risen!) and the response from those who were there was ‘Vaisyine voskryese’ (He is risen indeed!).

This or, in the monasteries I visited, the Greek equivalent, was heard throughout my time on the Holy Mountain.

Eventually we arrived at our destination, the port of Dafni, and took a bus from there to the administrative centre of the Athos peninsula, Karyes. I was wanting to extend my stay by one day, and needed official approval from the office in Karyes. It was not so easy to find it. No-one I tried spoke English or German or French, but I finally asked someone whether he spoke English and in a fluent Liverpuddlian accent he said, ‘a little’. So he spoke to a friend who could speak Greek and he asked someone who knew and eventually the location of the office was explained to me.

I went to the office to get my approval, but the man I needed to see was at a meeting, so the welcomer/ doorman sat me down, and brought me a drink and a biscuit, and we waited. And waited. And eventually the doorman, who spoke no English but communicated with me through a young Russian man who spoke some English, told me that since the official I needed still was not there I should just go away and stay an extra day and not worry. Having just been in Israel where not worrying about things like that can get you into a lot of trouble, I would have preferred to go away with an official approval in my hand, but I guessed that I needed to follow the advice I had been given by the friendly doorman and headed off.

When I got outside all the buses in Karyes had left for their various destinations and I asked at an office when the next bus would be leaving for Vatopedi monastery, which was my planned destination for that evening. “Tomorrow,” was the accurate but not very helpful answer. I was told that a taxi would cost me 40 Euro (around NZ$80). I asked how long it would take to walk (the Lonely Planet Guide had called the path from Karyes to Vatopedi a ‘long, lovely forest path’) and I was told around 3½ hours. So I decided to walk. I bought myself a guide map that included the walking tracks on the island – and set out. It was around 1.30pm.

Leaving the College and reflections on my trip so far

2010-05-15T02:17:00.000+12:00

28 April, 2010

I woke up at 2.15am, to get ready for the sherut (shared taxi) to Ben Gurion airport, which was collecting me at 2.45am. Dear Sharline, one of the expat members of staff, was there to make sure I got my sherut (thank you, Sharline!). After a little while spent in Jerusalem picking up others, the sherut took us straight through to the airport, and I was fortunate also to go straight through the Police checks. I caught a 7am flight to Athens, and then waited in Athens airport for my connecting flight to Thessaloniki that afternoon.

During my waits at Ben Gurion and Athens airports and at the bus station, I had time to reflect on my time in Jordan and Israel. In a few words, it has been a huge privilege and a wonderful and totally memorable experience to be in ‘the land of the Holy One’ as Bp Suheil calls this area. I found the College staff – both expats and locals – to be really excellent, and they contributed significantly to the great time I had. They operate in a difficult environment in Jerusalem and manage to cope with new people coming over and over again. I would recommend St George’s College to anyone who is interested in the course they are planning to take and who is fit and well enough to do a fair bit of walking.

Originally, I hadn’t planned to do the Holy Week and Easter course, ‘Risen with Christ’, but it was at least as memorable as ‘the Bible and its Setting’. What a time to be in Jerusalem! I am sure that I will never forget the walk to the Mount of Olives on Maundy Thursday night, the Armenian burial liturgy on Good Friday, and the Ethiopian service on Easter Eve. And other highlights were events in the Parvis and the Church of the Resurrection – the foot-washing, the procession on Good Friday and the Holy Fire ceremony. And the experience of being in Jerusalem and visiting a variety of churches there was totally memorable.

In ‘the Bible and its Setting’ the high point was probably the time spent in Galilee. Other highlights were my visit to the grotto in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the talk of the young Jewish man, Yakir Englander, who really did seem an outstanding individual.

I was also very glad that I went to Jordan, where Jerash, Petra, Madaba and the baptism site were all highlights of my trip. It was great also, between the courses, to visit Massada and the Yad Vashem holocaust memorial, both of which made a deep impression on me.

I expected to find the Israeli army presence and personnel difficult at times, but as it happened, I found that I was always treated with politeness by them. (I realise, of course, that people of Palestinian ethnicity regularly have a different experience.) I also admired the restraint of the Israeli police in the Church of the Resurrection at the Holy Fire ceremony. I came away thinking that it is good for the Jews to have their own homeland, but the outstanding issue is how Palestinians can also be truly at home in this land, or in a separate Palestinian state. I sensed that the bad treatment of the Palestinians is a poisonous legacy that is making, and will continue to make, the nation of Israel sick, until some better way of relating to one another is found.

So that’s my summary. I often found myself amazed to be physically present at the places where so much happened that is so precious to me. It was a truly great blessing.

Ending the course

2010-05-15T02:14:00.000+12:00

27 April, 2010

At 6am this morning we left the College to follow ‘the way of the cross’ (the path Jesus walked with the cross on Good Friday) in the old city. This was a devotional exercise and so no photos were allowed – for photos see my Good Friday (2 April) blog when photos were not prohibited! The whole event was much quieter than on Good Friday, when there was understandably a large press of people. Once again, I found the prayers moving, but did not have a particularly strong personal sense of accompanying Jesus on this road. There was still so much going on that I found it hard to focus and connect. In contrast, some others were obviously deeply moved, and one of our group was openly weeping behind me – weeping in company with the women of Jerusalem as Jesus passed by on that fateful day (Luke 23:27).

In the afternoon we went to Emmaus – only this Emmaus (Kiryat Ye’arim, also known as Abu Ghosh) was different from the Emmaus I went to last time (Nikopolis). For a discussion of the numerous alternative sites for Emmaus, see my blog for 6 April.) Along the way we went past Moza, which the Dean said was considered to be the most likely site (not 60 stadia away from Jerusalem as Luke states at Lk 24:13, but 30 stadia there and 30 stadia back to Jerusalem – so 60 stadia for the round trip). The site we were going to was 60 stadia from Jerusalem and famous in Israelite history as the place at which the ark of the covenant stayed for some decades, in the house of Abinadab, after it had been returned by the Philistines (1 Samuel 6:21-7:1; see also 2 Samuel 6:1-2).

We went to the Roman Catholic church of Notre Dame Arche d’Alliance, (Our Lady, Ark of the Covenant) which belongs to the sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition. We shared a Eucharist just outside the church in a lovely spot.

Just behind the Dean, Stephen Need, and the Course Assistant, Lois Symes, there was a beautiful view up to Jerusalem.

The Eucharist was peaceful and a nice way to begin the winding up of the course. It wasn’t quite the end, though, because after our return to the College we had a ‘come all ye’ concert, with songs, skits and poems performed by the students. It was nicely hosted by Fred Rose, who had been on both courses with me. It was lovely to experience the witty, topical, beautiful and thought-provoking things that came from the group members.

One particularly memorable item for me was offered by the oldest member of our group, Mair. Mair was Welsh, and she spoke about her childhood on a small farm in Wales and the interaction she had had with gypsies who used to camp at the bottom of the farm by the river. She then went on to deliver a poem in Welsh about gypsies. Her own story made a beautiful connection with the poem.

After some drinks and dinner, I wrote up my blog for the days in Galilee, then I had a final beer around a table with about 15 of the course members. It had been a great time and we had shared a lot in a short space of time.

The Church of the Resurrection

2010-05-15T02:07:00.001+12:00

26 April, 2010

This morning we had a lecture from John Peterson, a former Dean of the College, about the Church of the Holy Sepulchre/Resurrection. He said that those two names indicate two radically different theologies and understandings of the significance of this church. He commented that because of changes in the city walls in ancient times, this location that is now inside the city walls was outside the walls at the time of Jesus. It was a stone quarry pit that had been decommissioned around the 8th century BC and brought back into commission around the 1st century BC. Because the stones had faults running through them they were not up to the standard for building, so parts of the quarry had begun to be used for rock tombs. The fact that we know where the quarry is means we can be fairly certain that this was the place of the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Christ.

John’s lecture was far too substantial for me to convey it fully here. Suffice it to say that he gave us a good idea

1) of the setting of the stone quarry in Jesus’ time,

2) of the first church of Constantine that was built there after his mother Helena found what she believed was the true cross buried on the site, and

3) of the second Crusader church of the Holy Sepulchre (a less impressive building than the original), which is still standing.

After the lecture we gathered to walk down to the old city for an orientation tour to give us an idea of the first church and its surroundings. After lunch we would be seeing inside the second (existing) church.

We gathered outside St George’s Cathedral. I took the chance to go inside to take a photo ( they do not allow photography during services). It is quite an impressive building in the English Gothic style.

Then we went to the old city. John gave some comments as we went through the souk, showing us how the streets had got narrower and narrower, and showing us where the old city wall would have been. We climbed the stairs to the ‘roof’ or platform over the place where the first church had been. One part of this goes over the second church. So the Ethiopian Orthodox roof space, where I had seen the wonderful Easter Eve service, is over the Armenian chapel in the Church of the Resurrection, which I was to see later today.

In order to get down to the Parvis (courtyard) of the Church of the Resurrection we went through the Ethiopian Orthodox chapel area. As we did that, John asked an Ethiopian monk there to read us the passage of Philip sharing the good news with the Ethiopian eunuch from Acts.

Out of respect I did not take a picture while he was reading. But later we were allowed to take photos of the quite distinctive art there.

This diptych is of the Queen of Sheba visiting Solomon.

After lunch close by, we came back to the Church of the Resurrection, this time to go inside it. We started by going up the stairs to the ‘hill’ area where the crucifixion took place. After a little waiting we all got to see the place where Christ was crucified. (I had been here once before.) Along the way we could see the flawed stone with fault lines in it, which was presumably the reason that the quarry had been closed down in the 8th century BC.

John also pointed out to us where Bishop Kerpikian, the Armenian Archbishop, found a boundary wall to the quarry, when he had archaeologists excavate behind a cupboard in the Armenian chapel. There was clear evidence of quarrying, some ancient pottery and beyond that, the boundary wall. An early Christian inscription was also found in this place, saying in Latin “Lord, we have arrived”. Some scholars date this to the first century AD, others consider it as late as the 4th century. We were not allowed to enter into this part of the church, but could see it through a grille.

We visited other places in the Church of the Resurrection, with John pointing out significant things about them. Notable among these was the place where Constantine’s mother Helena found ‘the true cross’ of Jesus buried in the quarry, and on the basis of which the first church was built in this place. We also saw some columns from Constantine’s church that had been re-used in the second church. And finally we went to the Syrian Orthodox Chapel of Joseph of Arimathea. It is significant that within this chapel there is a kokh tomb with a channel in front of it for a stone to be rolled in front of the tomb. This is exactly the type of tomb in which Jesus was laid. Could it have been the tomb of Jesus? We can’t be sure. But his tomb certainly was not the monumental tomb in the Church, which was only ever meant to be a memorial to say that Jesus died and was entombed in this area. Many pilgrims (as I myself did earlier in my visit to Jerusalem) get the wrong impression that the edicule (little building) is built over the actual place where Jesus was entombed.

Jesus would have been laid in the central chamber of a kokh tomb but not anointed and bricked into one of the kokhs (niches – literally ‘ovens’). So he was laid in the tomb but not buried in the fullest sense. Below you will find two photos – the first of empty kokhs in this tomb within the Chapel of Joseph of Arimathea, and the second photo of kokhs that have been bricked in. (The space in the tomb was very dark and enclosed so I used a flash, with the result that the photos are blindingly bright!)

This was a totally unexpected and surprising (and therefore fitting) finale to our visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre/Resurrection. The whole offering from John Peterson was a great success and we came away with a much better about the church, its history, its various parts and its significance.

Computer problems

2010-05-08T07:10:00.000+12:00

Hi everyone

I am havıng problems with my computer, so do not know whether I will be able to keep bloggiıng. I will try again in the next couple of days.

Peter

John the Baptist

2010-05-06T04:07:00.000+12:00

25 April, 2010

Today was Sunday and I went to the 8am service in St George's cathedral. The service was significantly livened up by the arrival of around 100 Kenyans with their Bishop. Although this is normally a said service, the Kenyan worshippers led us in offertory songs and a final hymn. The colour of their clothes and the vitality of their worship brought real richness to the occasion.

Following lunch we went to Ein Kerem, traditionally remembered as the birthplace of John the Baptist. Ein Kerem is a village 7km southwest of Jerusalem, which was formerly Palestinian, but has now become a popular location for Jewish artists and sculptors. It boasts some chic galleries and restaurants. There are two main churches there, the Church of the Visitation and the Church of St John the Baptist, and two religious communities too - a Russian monastery and a Roman Catholic convent.

The Church of the Visitation is a Franciscan foundation with a lower and an upper church.

Antonio Barluzzi, an architect whose work we had seen before (e.g. at Bethany), was responsible for the design of the upper church here.

But I found that the smaller church down below - a redevelopment of an earlier Crusader building, was more affecting.

There were some lovely frescoes in both churches. I like this one of Mary's visitation to Elizabeth.

The Church of the Visitation is traditionally thought to have been on the site where Mary visited Elizabeth when she was 6 months pregnant with John the Baptist, but from the gate of this church you can look over the valley to John the Baptist church, which claims to have been built on the birthplace of John the Baptist.

An ingenious solution to the two potentially competing sites is the view that Mary visited Elizabeth at her summer house, and that her normal residence was on the other side of the valley!

The Church of St John the Baptist is also a Franciscan church. There was a Byzantine Church in this place, which was rebuilt by the Crusaders. The Crusader Church fell into complete disrepair and it was restored in 1674 with gifts from the Spanish monarchy. The Church was notable for the wonderful 17th century Spanish art on the walls.

The most revered site in the church is the grotto. It is believed to be part of the home in which John the Baptist was born to Zechariah and Elizabeth, and perhaps even the site of his birth.

As we returned to the bus we caught sight of the beautiful Russian monastery on the hill. It looked very impressive.

In the evening we had a visit of a different kind. This time an Israeli man called Yakir Englander visited the College to speak to us about the land of Israel from a Jewish perspective. (I didn't take a photo at the lecture so got this file photo from the internet.)

Yakir organised his talk by asking us what were our questions to him, thereby getting an idea of where we were coming from and what we wanted to know.

He was a very impressive man. Many of us asked in one way or another about the treatment of the Palestinians, and he didn't get defensive in his answers. He clearly indicated his concern for the situation, while also being quite clear that the building of the wall had radically reduced the number of deaths in Israel due to terrorist bombs.

He had been brought up in a strict Hasidic household but in his late teens or early twenties had come to realise that he needed to get out of that setting. Hasidic Jews are exempt from military service, so his decision to leave that life meant that he needed to serve in the army. In Jewish belief, the preservation of the dead person's body in death is very important, and so they go to some lengths to make sure that corpses are as whole as possible. During his time in the army Yakir volunteered to work collecting body parts of those who had died in an explosion or crash. This gave him a particular and quite understandable perspective on terrorist bombings.

Because of his concern for young people in Israel, and for the gulf between Jews and Palestinians, he established a programme called 'Kids for Peace', which gathers young people from those two groups and gives them time together to tell their stories to one another. It is obviously a really excellent programme that leads to much greater understanding.

He told a very moving story about a Palestinian woman who worked for Kids for Peace telling him that she had to resign. He asked why and she told him that her son had been arrested without charge by the Israeli forces and that she was too angry about it to go on helping with the programme. He persuaded her to keep on with it and tried to give her whatever help he could through the difficult time - around two years - during which the woman's son was in custody without charge. Eventually the judge refused to renew the order and the young man was released. There was a party for the young man in his family home on the West Bank, and as you can imagine many of the people who gathered were quite hostile towards the Israelis. Yakir was invited too, so he asked the family whether he would be safe coming to the party. They assured him that they would guarantee his safety. As he approached the house he had the scary sensation of people looking at him, knowing that he was an Israeli. When he arrived at the party, the young man who had been in prison for two years embraced him and said to him, "thankyou for all the support you have given to my mother".

As you can see from the above, I was highly impressed by Yakir. He came across as a person of great ability and very significant commitment to compassion and justice for all. He seemed the sort of person who will make a real and positive difference to the world.

In Jerusalem

2010-05-06T02:23:00.001+12:00

23-24 April, 2010

I do not have a great deal to report from this period of time. I was mainly trying to catch up on my blogging!

On the morning of 23 April we went to places that I had already visited on the previous course - the Dominus Flevit Church, the Dormition Abbey, the Cenacle and St Peter's in Gallicantu (see previous blogs for information about these places).

One new thing about this visit to Dominus Flevit was that the Dean pointed out some ossuaries (bone boxes) that are kept on the site.

The burial practice for wealthier people at the time of Jesus and for many years after that as well, was for them to be buried in kokh tombs (kokh means 'oven'). The body was prepared with spices and then put into a little space - like an oven in size but not heated in any way. The space where the body was laid was then bricked up and left until all the flesh had decayed. After perhaps 3 years, the bricks were removed and the bones were gathered up and put into an ossuary, which would be placed with other family ossuaries. This may be what is meant in the Old Testament by the statement 'he was gathered to his fathers'. The practice of using kokh tombs is one of the reasons why the Garden Tomb is not likely to have been Jesus' tomb - because it is designed in a different way, and probably comes from an earlier age.

Also at Dominus Flevit I took a photo shot through the sanctuary window that I was pleased with - looking out over Jerusalem across the Kidron Valley.

We then headed off to Mt Sion, to other places I had visited before. I picked up a new piece of information at the Cenacle. Apparently (and not surprisingly) this isn't the only site that claims to be on the place of the Last Supper. The other site is the Syrian Orthodox Church of St Mark, which I ended up visiting with some others from the course the next day. As it happened, we arrived when a service was on. The woman who is the unofficial verger there permitted us to take a photo towards the end of the service.

The site of the "Upper Room" is actually a crypt of this church - which makes sense given the way that the layers of Jerusalem have been built one upon another over the years.

Following that visit some of us went to St Anne's Church just near St Stephen's gate. It was a beautiful place built in Crusader style, and it had great acoustics. One of the nice things about this church was the rule that they didn't allow tour guides to speak, but allowed groups that came to sing or individuals and groups that simply came to be still and pray. (Of course there is always someone who thinks that the rules don't apply to him - note the tour guide! He was the only one who talked to a group in the church while we were there, though.)

We sat for quite a while listening to the beautiful singing of praise to God in many languages. A memorable moment was when a Filipino group sang, 'How great thou art', and we were able to join in.

According to tradition, St Anne's is built on the birthplace of the Virgin Mary. It is also the site of the Pool of Bethesda, where Jesus healed a man who had been an invalid for 38 years (John 5:1-9). The pools were outside the gates of the walled city of Jesus' time, and at that time they might even have been associated with Hellenistic /Roman (i.e. pagan) healing practices. There were two large pools there for collecting drinking water, and then some smaller pools used in relation to healing. The large pools were originally 13 metres deep.

The following picture shows remain from the area where the healing pools were. There was no clear identification of a particular site for the pools.

The beauty and resonance of the church and the association with healing in this place made it special. If I hadn't come here so late in my time in Jerusalem, it would have been a place to revisit.

Back in Bethlehem

2010-05-04T22:08:00.001+12:00

22 April, 2010

Today was a rest day after our time away in Galilee. I decided to use it to go back to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem with two others from the course. We headed off straight after breakfast, and caught a local bus to Bethlehem. The bus actually stops at Bait Jalla, a town right next to Bethlehem, and we were told by staff at the College to take a taxi to the Church from the bus stop. It was hard to persuade the taxi driver that we only wanted to go to the church! The dollar signs appeared in his eyes and he urged us to go to Herodion and the Shepherds’ field and so on. I explained that we had already been there. We agreed on a slightly inflated price to go to the church but then on the way he said that he would wait for us and take us to the police checkpoint, where we were going next – for a much more inflated price. I said no, we would pay him just for the one ride, but he wouldn’t take the money! What to do? I didn’t want to be having to look for him or to be accused of not paying him, so when we got out in Manger Square and I saw a policeman close by, I went up and asked for his help so that I could pay the taxi fare. I don’t think I was the taxi driver’s favourite person, but he took the money and drove away.
So there we were, back in Manger Square. We entered the church by the low door, and checked out whether we could go into the grotto – but an Armenian service had just started and was going to take about an hour. The others suggested looking at something else and coming back, but I just wanted to see the grotto, so I said that I would wait there.

When I got to the steps down to the grotto, I was the first one there, as all the tour groups had gone away because of the service in the grotto. So I sat and waited, and read the first two chapters of Luke’s Gospel in my Bible as the Armenian service took place down in the grotto.

Gradually people gathered to wait, until there was a crowd around the door and a long line back down into the body of the church. A few people sat a little lower down the steps than I had, but I was okay with that because I didn’t have to be first, as long as I got in fairly quickly. As we gathered there waiting, there was a strong sense of expectation. It was quite a worshipful atmosphere with Christians from many countries waiting to enter the grotto, which the tradition remembers as the birthplace of Jesus.

Eventually the service ended. I was told that I needed to come up to the top of the steps as someone was going to sweep them and the grotto before we could go in. So I stood up there and once the sweeping was over went down a few steps again with others there. To my surprise, when the grotto was opened to the public again, people stood back to let me go in first, as I had been the first there. I actually found it quite moving, because it was such a gracious atmosphere compared with the pushing and shoving of Holy Week and Easter in Jerusalem. I went into the grotto first and had a moment alone there. I touched the spot traditionally remembered as the place of Jesus’ birth. (Again, the issue was not so much where exactly was the site historically? The issue was more that I was able to worship in this very sacred place as had so many others down through the centuries.) It was a special moment, and one that I am sure I will always remember.

After we had seen through the grotto, my friends and I went to visit another church associated with Jesus’ infancy – the Milk Grotto (officially known as Magharet Sitti Mariam "Grotto of the Lady Mary"). This is a beautiful. calm site only 3 minutes walk from the Church of the Nativity.

This grotto, with a Franciscan chapel built above it, is considered sacred because tradition has it that the Holy Family took refuge here during the Slaughter of the Innocents, before their flight into Egypt. Tradition has it that while Mary was nursing Jesus here, a drop of milk fell to the ground, turning it white.

On the way back down the street to Manger Square, I did another little bit of shopping (and got charged to much again – sigh!) Then we got a taxi to the checkpoint. On our way through the checkpoint, we were delayed for quite a while. Amazingly, there was only one booth open for checking the papers of people both who were going in and who were going out. I was inclined to think that that was a way of dissuading Palestinian people from making the effort to get through the checkpoint at all.

In the afternoon I visited St James Armenian Cathedral again for their Vespers service. Then I went on to the Garden Tomb, a suggested site for the crucifixion that does not have the historical or traditional validation of the Church of the Resurrection. I went mainly out of curiosity as others had visited this site and it was close to the College. It was less crowded by decoration and so more appealing in a way to those who like things plain and simple. But it did not seem to me to have the sense of authenticity and holiness that the Church of the Resurrection and the grotto in the Church of the Nativity have.

On the road to Jerusalem

2010-05-04T21:34:00.000+12:00

21 April, 2010

I got up early today, to take a few photos of the Sea of Galilee before our departure. It had just rained, and the sun was shining through the rain clouds.

Across the lake I could see the modern town of Tiberias, and further north, the mountains of Galilee.

We set out for our journey back to Jerusalem - passing the site of Magdala along the way (where Mary Magdalene came from), as well as Mount Gilboa, where Saul and three of his sons died in battle with the Philistines (1 Samuel 31). The countryside, of course, is just full of sites of significance to biblical history. We were actually heading for Bet She'an (a city with a history as far back as the fifth millenium BC, due to its strategic site at the junction of the Jordan River Valley and the Jezreel Valley). The high point above the city had a wonderful view right out to the hills of Jordan. In Hellenistic times a city called Scythopolis was built on this site. In Jesus' time, Scythopolis was the capital of the group of cities known as the Decapolis, and the most important city in northern Israel. Like the other cities in the Galilee area, it was of mixed Jewish and Gentile population.

Bet She'an/Scythopolis was an extensive site, but I spent most of my time in the bath house (so to speak).

This is the hypocaust. The little brick pillars supported a floor under which hot air was circulated, to create a sauna effect in the room above. There were a whole series of panels explaining what happened in the bath house - which I won't bore you with here! But it certainly absorbed my attention and so I didn't go exploring more widely on this site.

The next place on our itinerary was Jericho. The guide books make the claim that this is the oldest continually inhabited city on earth, with remains going back to the proto-Neolithic period (10,000-8,500 BC). The Jericho tell, known as Tell es-Sultan has 17 identifiable layers in it – before 1,500 BC! Many of the finer archaeological details escaped me, but I was interested by a talk that the Dean gave about archaeology in the Holy Land.
He said that archaeology only really developed as a discipline in the middle of the 19th century, and that the earliest archaeologists were said to come to the Holy Land with a Bible in one hand and a spade in the other. They had expectations of what they would find, which were formed by the biblical text. Quite often their work showed that the biblical text was based on accurate historical memory. At times, however, the result was that they found what they were looking for because they interpreted their evidence to support their presuppositions. An example of this is the work of John Garstang in the 20th century, who found in the Jericho tell a second millennium BC wall that had been destroyed and he argued that it was the one destroyed by Joshua and the invading Israelites in the 14th century BC. A later archaeologist, Kathleen Kenyon, focused on the same evidence and argued that this destruction came at a time a few centuries earlier than the Israelites’ entry into Canaan. This latter view still holds the greater weight in the archeological world. The Dean made the point that archaeology is far from an exact science, as it involves not only discovery but also interpretation.

The contentious ‘wall’ is the brick layer in the picture below, a little below a stone layer.

Right next to Jericho is a mountain traditionally identified as the Mount of Temptation. You can get an idea of the kind of desert Jesus was in for 40 days and nights, up on that mountain.

The Greek Orthodox church have long had a monastery in this inhospitable place.

In contrast, modern Jericho, as seen from Tell es-Sultan, looked green and really quite beautiful.

After a nice lunch at a local restaurant, we headed back towards Jerusalem and stopped for a time of reflection at Wadi Qelt, an area just off the main highway, from which you could see bits of the old Roman road from Jericho to Jerusalem (the road that features in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan). You could see how the Roman road construction followed the wadi, so that travellers could find water and also shade from the trees that grew by the water.

In the evening we had an interesting lecture from Naim Ateek, a Palestinian Anglican priest and director of the organisation Sabeel, which aims to promote peace through dialogue between the three main religions of the Holy Land (Jewish, Muslim and Christian). His lecture provoked quite a lot of discussion amongst our group. I found one thing he said particularly memorable. He said that the issue of a just peace and solution to the current situation between Israel and the Palestinians related to theological views about God, about others and about the land. Is God only the God of Israel, or is he equally the God of the Palestinians and as interested in justice for them as for the Jews? Is he concerned about how his people (Jewish, Muslim and Christian) treat each other? And has he given the land to only one group or to all peoples to live in? Although these perspectives don’t provide any easy answers to the difficult questions, they do provide a way of working towards some answers.

Galilee of the Gentiles

2010-04-28T07:55:00.001+12:00

19-20 April, 2010

We headed off to Galilee, which is in Israeli territory north of Jerusalem, on the morning of 19 April. Our first stop was Caesarea Maritima - another city built by Herod the Great, in the years 25-13 BC. It is a gorgeous site, right by the sea, and was built as an up-to-date Roman city, with theatre, hippodrome, harbour, and a lengthy aqueduct that brought water from springs at the foot of Mt Carmel.

Of course, Herod had a prime site for his palace.

From 13 BC Caesarea was the capital of the Roman province of Judaea, and the official residence of the Roman procurators and governors. An inscription found there mentions the name of Pontius Pilate.

It was at Caesarea that St Peter visited and baptised a Gentile - the Roman centurion Cornelius (Acts 10, 11). St Paul often spent time there (Acts 9:30, 18:22, 21:8), and he was imprisoned at Caesarea for two years before being taken to Rome (Acts 23:23; 25:1-13).

This site was perhaps the most beautiful one we had visited to this time. It is no wonder that Caesarea was a favourite city of the Romans.

The next stop we made was at Sepphoris (the Greek name), a town that was also known as Diocaesarea by the Romans and Zippori in Hebrew. Sepphoris is situated near to Nazareth in the central Galilee area. In the New Testament period, Sepphoris was a major town, and the capital of Galilee. It would very probably have been visited by Jesus. In fact, if Jesus and his father Joseph were carpenters/artisans, it is likely that they would both have done business in this town. Strangely, however, the town is not mentioned at all in the New Testament.

Sepphoris also has an interesting later Jewish and Roman history. In the 2nd century Ad it was a centre of Jewish religious and spiritual life, and for some time the seat of the Sanhedrin. It continued to be inhabited by a wide variety of races. The photo below is from a Roman house built in the 3rd century AD.

Following this visit, we went to our accommodation at the beautiful Benedictine Pilgerhaus (Pilgrim's House) in Tabgha on the Sea of Galilee.

The rooms and meals were lovely, and we enjoyed the beautiful outlook and situation as well.

A number of us went to Evening Prayer in the nearby Church of Heptapegon (meaning 'seven springs' in Greek). The area is now known as Tabgha. The church is believed to be the site of Jesus' multiplication of the loaves and fishes. The chanting by the Benedictine monks was beautiful and there was a great sense of peace there. The special readings for the Easter season focused on the Christian hope of resurrection, and I felt a strong sense of connection with those gathering for Joan's funeral in Whanganui.

The next morning we set out for Capernaum (or Capharnaum - in Hebrew Kfar Nahum, 'Nahum's Village.) Jesus came to Capernaum after he had a confrontation in his synagogue in Nazareth, his boyhood home. Since he was rejected in Nazareth, he decided to relocate his ministry to Capernaum. It was an ideal spot for him to carry out his ministry. It was a larger town than Nazareth and was on the main Damascus Highway. As a result, Jesus was able to reach out to more people. Soon after Jesus settled there, he began to preach in the synagogue (Mark 2:1). Matthew calls Capernaum "Jesus' own town" (Matt 9:1).

We saw the ruins of the house that is thought to have belonged to Simon Peter's mother-in-law, which Jesus also visited, when he healed her of a fever. It is thought that this was also the home of Simon Peter. Various churches have been built on this holy site, but the most recent church was raised up and built above it, so that the archaeological remains are left visible.

Just a few steps away was the synagogue - although the synagogue ruins we could see came from the fourth century AD, they appear to have been built on the black basalt ruins of the first century synagogue.

The site was impressive and there was a strong sense of connection with the life of Jesus. But the thing that struck me most of all was the beauty of the location. It was an incredibly beautiful spot, and that was not something that I ever really grasped through reading the Gospels.

I walked around with a deep sense of gratitude, marvelling at the fact that I was there.

Our next stop was at the Church of Peter's Primacy, also in the Tabgha area. This church focuses on three important gospel events - the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5, 6), the multiplication of the bread and fish (Matthew 14:13-21), and the third apparition of the risen Jesus where there was a miraculous haul of fish, breakfast for the disciples by the lake, and Jesus commissioned Peter, "Feed my lambs..., look after my sheep" (John 21:1-19). Inside the Church a rock is featured as the rock on which Jesus served breakfast to the disciples. The sign in Latin calls it 'the table of Christ'.

We had some quiet time for meditation and then we shared a Eucharist, at which Bob Osborne, a recently retired Dean from Winnipeg in Canada presided. He had seemed a bit tired out on our travels up till that point, but suddenly came alive as he presided at the Eucharist. It was a lovely thing to see. He talked about having presided at Eucharists by lakes in Canada and having said to people, "imagine you are by the Sea of Galilee". And now we really were. Bob spoke of the privilege of presiding at that Eucharist and he did it beautifully. For me, this was one of the highlights of our trip to Galilee. (I did not want to take photos during the service. This was taken just before it.)

Our next stop was a fish restaurant by the Sea of Galilee, and then we were off to the northernmost point we reached during our travels - Caesarea Philippi on the Golan heights. (This site is also called Bani Yas as a corruption of Paneas, because Pan was worshipped there at a gushing spring that flowed out of a cave. Following a major earthquake the spring now seeps through the rock outside the cave. It is the source for a river that provides 25% of Israel's water.)

In the year 3BC the tetrarch, Philip II, founded a city at this site, and the ruins are still evident today. The city itself was mentioned twice in the Gospels, in equivalent passages: Mark 8:27-30 and Matthew 16:13-20. These passages tell of Jesus' question to his disciples, "Who do you say that I am?" and Peter's response, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16:16). Connecting with this affirmation of Peter, we had a service at the site to renew our own baptismal vows.

On the way back to our accommodation we visited the tell that is has been identified as ancient Bethsaida. Bethsaida used to be on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, but this site is actually 1.5 kms away nowadays. This distance raises some uncertainties, but the change may have come partly through earthquake activity, and partly because the Sea of Galilee was more extensive in Jesus' time than it is now. The tell of Bethsaida has been excavated fairly recently, and a house there was found to have many fishing implements. Because of this it is known as the Fisherman's House.

Bethsaida is known as the birthplace of three of the Apostles – Peter, Andrew and Philip. Jesus himself visited Bethsaida and performed several miracles there (Mark 8:22-26; Luke 9:10).

By the time we left this site I was looking forward to a swim in the Sea of Galilee to cool down, and when we got back to the Pilgerhaus at Tabgha, I had a long and refreshing swim. It was a great end to a memorable day.

The Holy City

2010-04-26T08:38:00.002+12:00

18 April, 2010

Today we visited non-church sites in Jerusalem. We had an early breakfast and left for the Temple Mount area, where the first and second temples (the temples of Solomon and Herod) were built. This area is known to Muslims as Haraam ash-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary.

In the centuries after the destruction of the second temple by the Romans, this area became a rubbish dump. But when the Muslim Ummayad forces took control of Jerusalem, they cleared it of rubbish, and built on it two beautiful buildings - the famous shrine known as the Dome of the Rock, and the Al-Aqsa mosque.

The Dome of the Rock is the oldest Muslim monument still standing. It is not a mosque, but a Muslim shrine. It was built in the late seventh century by the Umayyad Caliph Abd ul-Malik over a sacred stone that has important associations both to Jews and to Muslims. In Jewish tradition the stone was thought to be the place where Abraham prepared to sacrifice Isaac. It also marked the place of the Holy of Holies in the now destroyed Temple. In Muslim tradition the stone is believed to be the place from which the Prophet Muhammad ascended into heaven during his Night Journey to heaven.

The first Al-Aqsa mosque was built by the Caliph Omar, and a much extended version was completed by the Caliph Al-Walid in 709AD. The building that you see above is actually the third mosque on this site, completed in 1135. Al-Aqsa means 'the farthest', and it received this name because, when it was originally built, it was the farthest mosque from the Islamic heartland of Arabia. It is the third most important mosque in Islam after the mosques in Mecca and Madina.
Sadly, Christians and Jews are not allowed in the Al-Aqsa mosque nor the Dome of the Rock, but pictures of their interiors can be found on the internet if you are interested.

It seems slightly wierd that in Jerusalem the Temple Mount, which is so sacred to the Jews, has two Islamic monuments on it. The Jews have focused their attention on the Western Wall (the Wailing wall) which is a wall of the support structure for the Temple Mount, built by Herod the Great. This is now the holiest site for Jewish people.

We went from the Temple Mount to the Western wall, and took the opportunity to pray there. In the picture above you can see a small enclosure on the right, which is the women's section, and the section on the left is for men. Christians are welcome to pray there, and as is customary, I took a prayer, written on paper, to insert into the cracks of the wall. As I laid my hand on the wall and prayed, I had a strong sense of the faith in God and religious devotion that had been expressed in this place. I had not expected to be moved as I visited the Western Wall, but I was.

After leaving the Western Wall, we went to view the excavations at the southern wall. There was evidence there of the destruction of the Temple. These paving stones were broken by stones that were hurled down by the Romans from the wall of the Temple.

Also found were many ritual baths (mikvehs), where people would ritually purify themselves before entering the Temple.

I began to feel tired from tramping around looking at things, so I decided to sit down. I found a seat that looked a bit large for me, but worked fine.

Not far from this site were the southern steps of the Temple, outside the current city walls. These were steps up and down which Jesus would have walked as he visited and left the Temple.

After lunch in the old city we visited the City of David excavations and Hezekiah's tunnel (outside the current city wall further down the hill on the southern side of the Temple Mount). Recently the Israelis have been excavating the old Canaanite-Jebusite city area, which David captured and made into his own city. Among the houses and other buildings in the city of David (also known as the Ophel) they have found signs of the destruction caused by the Babylonians in 586BC. Records were burned in the Babylonian destruction, but in some cases the seals on them survived the fires. A number of these seals had names on them that were known from the Bible, such as Gemariahu son of Shaphan, who was a high-ranking official in the court of King Jehoiakim (Jer. 36:9-12). So as the excavations continue they are uncovering parts of our - as well as the people of Israel's - biblical heritage.

Hezekiah's tunnel (also known as the Siloam tunnel) was built in 701 BC, in in the time of King Hezekiah, when the kingdom of Judah was under imminent threat of attack by the Assyrians under King Sennacherib (2 Kings 20:20). It is an amazing piece of engineering, bringing water from the Gihon spring, which was outside the city walls, to a point within the city walls - the pool of Siloam. (This was crucial to the survival of the city, because the city could only survive a siege if the inhabitants had adequate amounts of fresh water.) In fact, King Hezekiah did not want the Assyrian army to get any water from the Gihon spring, so he somehow diverted the water so that the Assyrians could not gain access to it (2 Chronicles 32:2-4,30).

The tunnel itself is a curving channel 533 metres long, cut in the bed rock. It was, of course, all done with hammer and chisel. The gradient for the water is only 30 cm (0.6%). An inscription found within the tunnel states that the tunnel was cut from both ends simultaneously. By some feat of engineering - possibly by the guidance of sound from the surface tapped into the bed rock, they managed to make the two tunnels meet. We were allowed to walk through the tunnel. The picture on the left below shows the discrepancy between the two tunnels at the point of meeting - only around 30-40cms. In the other photograph you can see the water level, which for most of the way was just above ankle height, but at the beginning was quite a lot higher, with the water rushing from the spring.

At the end of the tunnel we came to the Pool of Siloam, which was a lovely, peaceful spot.

A visit to Bethlehem

2010-04-26T07:11:00.001+12:00

17 April, 2010

This morning we set off for Bethlehem, which is only 15 minutes drive from Jerusalem, but in the Palestinian territories. That meant that we needed to go through a checkpoint to get there, and to get back. On the way to Bethlehem, we visited Herodion, one of Herod the Great's favourite palaces/forts.

Herod was a great builder. In building his public works, such as the Temple in Jerusalem and the tomb of the patriarchs in Hebron, it is possible that he was wanting to gain popularity with the Jewish people (he was only half-Jewish himself, and seems to have been more Roman than Jewish in his way of life). He was hated by many Jews, but his public works were certainly impressive and religiously significant - likely to gain him favour with the people. With his palaces and forts he appears to have been focusing on his own status and security - about which he took great care. He put to death even members of his own household and family in order to maintain his position, and obviously had a paranoid streak. I do think it is ironic, though, that the hated and hardly-Jewish King Herod was the builder of what are now the Jews' two most sacred sites.

This view of Herod's Palace at Herodion was taken from a little way up the Herodion hill, on the top of which was Herod's fort. The large square area was a pool in his palace, with a little round island - perhaps originally topped by a statue - in the middle. The buildings close to the hill may have been staff quarters.

At the top of the hill was the fort.

The fort was built and used in the time of Herod the Great, but it was also used by partisans at the time of the first Jewish Revolt against the Romans in 66-70AD, and the second Jewish Revolt (also known as the Bar Kochva revolt) in 132-135AD. As with other sites we visited, there were huge cisterns in this fort, to preserve copious supplies of water for use in times of drought or siege.

From the top of the fort, you could see for miles in all directions. (We were able to see some of the illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank from here. Jewish settlements typically have red tile roofs.)

A recent find at Herodion was Herod the Great's tomb. It was built into the side of the hill and is still being excavated.

Our next stop was Bethlehem, where we went first to an area called The Shepherd's Fields. This is traditionally identified as the place where the shepherds received a visitation from angels at the time of Jesus' birth. Churches have been built on this site, incorporating the caves where shepherds may have taken shelter.

We had a short reflection and sang a hymn in the cave. Then we went out into the garden are for a time of quiet meditation. There was a special, peaceful atmosphere here, and it was good to take some time to be quiet.

After some time souvenir shopping at a local store that sold local handicrafts, we went to lunch at a very nice local restaurant.

After lunch, we went to the Church of the Nativity - which is supposed to be situated on the site where Jesus was born. As a consequence, it is thought of as one of the two holiest Christian sites. The church was built by the Emperor Justinian in the 6th century, after the destruction of an earlier, Constantinian church. It is the oldest church still in use in the Holy Land, as it was exceptional in not having been destroyed by the Persians in 614, when they invaded. The church is understood to have been spared because the magi were depicted on the outside of the church, and one of them was in Persian dress.

The front door is very low - apparently made that way in the 16th century to stop people riding into the church! It is often called the door of humility, because any adult will have to bend down in order to enter it.

The church was very busy when we arrived, and the Dean found that there was a service taking place in the grotto where Jesus was born, with a long line of people waiting to enter the grotto when the service ended.

So he decided to take us next door to the Roman Catholic (Franciscan) St Catherine's Church, and the caves underneath, which adjoin the sacred grotto, and where St Jerome lived and worked on his translation of the Bible. We did not go back into the church and I realised then that we were not going to get into the grotto, which was a disappointment. But the Dean said that if we wanted to go into the grotto, we could do that on one of our days off. I thought that that would be a good idea, and I later had the opportunity to do that.

On the way back to Jerusalem we passed close to the 24 foot high separation wall between Israel and the Palestinian territories. While ordinary tourists don't have much trouble getting through the check points, Palestinians can have significant problems.

After dinner, I went with two others from the course to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. It was great to be there when there were fewer people and I managed to get into the two holiest places there - the place where Jesus' resurrection is thought to have happened, and the place where he was crucified. I left my camera at the College! So I don't at this stage have any photos to post.

A journey to the desert

2010-04-25T04:51:00.001+12:00

15-16 April, 2010

We packed up early today and headed off for a two day trip to the desert areas of the Negev and the Judean desert. Our first destination was the West Bank (Palestinian) city of Hebron. Our bus took us into the old city of Hebron, just by the souk, and Paulette, an American woman, came to meet us. She was working with a group called Christian Peacemaker Teams. She gave us an introduction to an amazing situation where 400 Jewish settlers have illegally occupied a site in the centre of the old city. Because they are there (albeit illegally) Israeli soldiers have moved in to protect them (and the local Palestinians) from armed conflict. (Normally security in this area is under the control of the Palestinian authorities.) There were two massacres in the twentieth century - the first of Jews and the second, in 1994, of Palestinians. Paulette believed that there were four to six times as many soldiers there as illegal settlers. There was a roof-top army post just next to Paulette's house, which we were not allowed to photograph.

The presence of the settlers means that some areas of the old city have been marked out as for Israeli settlers only. In effect, the 150,000 Palestinian inhabitants of Hebron are being prevented from going about their day to day business because of 400-600 settlers. The photo below shows Paulette leading us down an empty souk street on a week day morning. Things are so difficult in this area that few people come, so the shop keepers have closed down. Never in all the time I have spent in the Middle East have I seen a souk this empty during a working day. This is a different kind of desert.

Another example of the trouble caused for the local inhabitants is the story of an old Palestinian lady who lives close to Paulette. The Israeli army has forbidden Palestinians to use several streets close to the settlers. As this lady is not allowed in the street in front of her house, she now has to do the following things to enter her home. She has to climb a ladder to a neighbour's roof, and go through a hole broken for her in a wall between their two houses, climb down a ladder to her back yard and enter her back door. We saw the ladders and the hole in the dividing wall.

As well as being a major Palestinian city, it has a very important site sacred to three faiths - the cave of Machpelah, which Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite for a family burial place (Gen. 23). The bodies of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Rebekah and Leah are thought to have been buried there in the caves well below the current monument - the Ibrahimi mosque, and for this reason the site has been sacred since at least the 10th century BC.

The Ibrahimi mosque is said to be the oldest building in the world in continual use, with its walls having been built in the reign of King Herod in the first century BC. Note the huge stones, which are typical of the buildings of Herod. (The man with his back to the wall - so to speak - is our guide Nasser Elias.)

This place is the second most sacred site for the Jews, after the Western (Wailing) wall in Jerusalem, and a portion of the building is in use as a synagogue, while the rest is a mosque. As the site of a mass murder of Palestinians by a Jewish man in 1994, it is very highly policed (photos prohibited!).

Inside the mosque (or in an adjoining building) are the cenotaphs (empty tombs) of the patriarchs and matriarchs. This is the tomb of Isaac.

After some time at the mosque we headed back to the bus and went on our way to Be'er Sheva in the Negev desert. Along the way we were stopped at a checkpoint, going from the Palestinian territory (West Bank) back into Israel. Both our bus driver and our guide were Palestinians, and that might have been one of the reasons it took us a while to get through. After the hold-up we went on to Be'er Sheva, often spoken of in the Bible as the southernmost part of Israel (e.g. 'from Dan to Be'er Sheva' - Judges 20:1). Here God appeared to Isaac and he dug a well that struck water (Gen. 26:23-33).

Be'er Sheva had been on a trade route between Egypt and Mesopotamia that was used for thousands of years. There are signs of habitation from the Chalcolithic period (around 4,000 BC) onwards. As always, the presence of water in this place was a key factor in establishing it as a city. We went down a huge cistern built into the tell.

We headed up to the Be'er Sheva Tel (the city mound where the archaeological excavations had been undertaken). Archaeologists believe that most of the remains there date from around 1,000BC. You can see from the photo below where the ancient walls have been added to in the process of restoration of the site.

We entered a huge water cistern that had been found in the tell. As in other archaeological sites we visited, this cistern went down into the tell.

After looking through the cistern, we headed off to our campsite for the night at Kfar Hanoqdim ('the village of the shepherds') a Bedouin settlement in the desert. When we got there a group of camels had been made ready for camel rides, so most of us had a very slow and sedate camel ride, led by the Bedouin staff of the settlement. That's me on the 'single-seater' in the middle of the photograph!

We got our bedding sorted out and then went to a tent for a welcome presentation from our hosts. While someone told us about the Bedouin lifestyle, others roasted and boiled coffee for us and some fire-baked bread. The man who spoke to us also answered questions, and I thought that he had a lot of interesting things to say. He seemed to share as a host rather than simply give a spiel for the tourists.

After the talk I went for a walk in the desert and recognised Massada not too far away in the distance. This time I was seeing it from the Arad side. Here you can see the Roman earth ramp built almost 2,000 years ago, about two thirds along the mountain side from left to right.

Before dinner I checked my mobile for a text, and I was shocked to read that my mother-in-law Joan had died that morning New Zealand time. I was very sad to hear the news, as I had thought that she was getting better after a health crisis, and I was looking forward to seeing her on my return. I was sad too, of course, for all those at home who loved her. I felt rather useless, so far away from home at that important time. I texted Helen to say that I would call her on my return to St George's College. We had spoken earlier about the possibility of Joan dying and had worked out that I would stay on my course if that happened.

After dinner, we settled in for a marae-style night with 40 of us in a single tent. The family was very much on my mind, so I took some time to go to sleep....

The next day many of us rose with the dawn. Before breakfast we had a Eucharist, at which Joan and the family were remembered. We headed east down to the Dead Sea area and turned north to travel past Massada and En Gedi to Qumran. There we viewed the site where the Essenes (an ultra-Orthodox Jewish ascetic community) had lived at the time of Jesus.

The Essenes are famous because of the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls in caves in the hills surrounding Qumran between 1947 and 1956. Nearly 900 scrolls were found, many of them in fragmentary state, which members of the community appear to have hidden from the Romans at the time of the Jewish Revolt (66-70AD). The scrolls covered three main areas, Hebrew Bible texts, commentaries on the texts, and other community-focused texts, including a rule for the life of the community. Two amazing thing about the Biblical texts are firstly that they were around 1,000 years earlier than any other Hebrew Bible texts found to that date, and secondly that although this great time gap separated the ancient and the medieval texts, the texts had been copied so faithfully throughout the ages that the medieval texts were correct in all but a few minor details. The Dead Sea scrolls were the greatest discovery of ancient texts in the 20th century.

One of the caves in which the scrolls, contained in pots, were found, is this one that can be seen from the Qumran site.

After lunch at the tourist cafeteria at Qumran, on our way back to Jerusalem, we headed on to the Dead Sea to swim (or rather, to float). The Dead Sea is the lowest point on earth, 422 metres below sea level. The marketers use this as a point of difference!

The Dead Sea is unique in being approximately 30% salt and other minerals, instead of the normal 3%. That means that it is the most buoyant body of water anywhere in the world. The truth of this is plain (but not pretty) to see!

The Bible and its Setting

2010-04-25T00:29:00.003+12:00

14 April, 2010

My next course at St George's - the Bible and its Setting - started today, with a Eucharist at St George's Cathedral. After breakfast and introductions, we had an introductory lecture on Biblical geography by the Dean of the College, Stephen Need. He spoke about the 'holy lands' - including Jordan, Syria and Lebanon - not just the Holy Land. He also talked about biblical archaeology as we will be going to a number of archaeological sites on this course.

In the afternoon, we set out for Bait Abraham on the Mount of Olives - a place we had visited on the previous course (see my post 'Monday of Holy Week' posted on 29 March) - as there is such a great outlook over Jerusalem from the roof (and also a great lunch). Stephen pointed out various sites - the Kidron Valley, Mt Zion, the Temple Mount, the Hinnom Valley (biblical Gehenna), and the excavations of the City of David, which is outside the city walls on the southern side rising up towards the Temple Mount, plus many other sites.

The city of David excavations date back to the 10th century BC, and are built on top of older ruins from the Jebusite kingdom that King David captured, which was settled by 1800BC. The attraction of this site was a water source. The Gihon spring was just outside the ancient city walls. The site is not much to look at from afar, but it is amazing to have such an ancient and important site coming to light at the moment. We will visit it later in the course.

An interesting thing about the holy sites is that they don't have to be the actual (historical) site where things originally took place. Stephen pointed out that the place where something is remembered becomes the holy site. So for example the Temple Mount is viewed by many as the site where Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice, even though the real site was a long way to the south, somewhere in the Negev desert. The Mount of Olives is also identified in some traditions with the Mount of Transfiguration, although that must be a long way to the north, beyond the Sea of Galilee. What is happening here is that people want to remember important events in their own neighbourhood, and designate places that serve as places of remembrance and become hallowed because of the memory associated with them. It's a different way of looking at sacred history from ours.

One of the great things about this new course is that a friend from the Wellington Diocese, John Hughes, Vicar of the Karori parish, is on the course too. Here we are at Bait Abraham with the city of Jerusalem behind us.

An encounter with some Jewish history

2010-04-24T04:58:00.107+12:00

12-13 April

I got up early in the morning and took the early bus to the King Hussein/Allenby Bridge. Everything went without a hitch and I was in Jerusalem by 11am. I did some repacking and organising and headed off to the Central Bus Station to buy a return ticket for Massada. I had a while before the bus was leaving, so I left the bus station and bought some lunch and dinner, as the internet had said that the Massada Hostel did not serve dinner.

Massada was one of the fortified citadels of King Herod the Great, and perhaps his most forbidding and secure fort. Before he was king he left family members here to protect them while he continued on to establish the kingdom. He developed it so that he had a winter palace there as well as amazing storage of water, weapons, food and everything necessary to endure a long siege. In the end, it was not King Herod who was besieged here, but Jewish partisans after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70AD following the first Jewish revolt (66-70AD). Rebels from Jerusalem joined up with the partisans who had taken the stronghold over from the Roman garrison, and they held out for some 4 years there.

Massada looks impregnable from the Dead Sea (eastern) side (the side from which the photo below was taken), but it was finally captured from the Arad (western) side of the mountain after a lengthy siege.

We travelled down the Dead Sea route to Massada, and the bus took us almost to the door of the hostel. On the bus I met a young American called Michael, who was on a long tour prior to starting graduate law school. He was going to Massada too, and was planning to climb it the next morning, so we agreed to do that together.

We gathered at 5am with our torches, ready to climb the 'snake path' to the top of the mountain and greet the dawn. It was tough going climbing up, but satisfying to make it to the top. There the view was amazing. We watched as the sun rose over the hills of Jordan beyond the Dead Sea.

I didn't expect Massada to be so large, but it was a very extensive site - 650m x 300m. At the time of the siege, there were almost 1,000 rebels living there in buildings on the mountain top and in rooms that were built into the perimeter walls.

The Romans set up camps around the base of the mountain, which are still visible today - and are in fact parts of the best preserved Roman siege works in existence (note the two squares on the foothills close to the mountain, which are two of the camps that have been excavated).

The Romans could not scale the walls, so they spent ages building a huge earthen ramp, so that they could bring up a battering ram to breach the walls. As you can see, the ramp is still there.

The Romans succeeded in breaching the wall and, according to the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, they decided to retire for the night and take the stronghold the next day. During the night the 960 people living on Massada decided to commit suicide rather than be taken by the Romans. Whether or not this is actually what happened (and so much in this land is political - both the claims that it did and that it did not), the staunch resistance of the partisans and their determination to die rather than surrender has become a formative story for modern Jewish Israelis.

I spent quite a while exploring the ruins and then headed back to the Youth Hostel to collect my things before taking the bus back to Jerusalem.

Since I had started so early I was back in Jerusalem by lunch time. So I decided that I would take the opportunity to see the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial. This is one of the things I had promised myself I would do when I was planning to visit Jerusalem. Yad Vashem do not allow photographs, so there is no visual record of it here.

The memorial was a museum with a very engrossing and moving account of the holocaust and its causes. My guide book to Israel said that I should set aside 3 hours to see it, but I had an audio guide, and 4 and a half hours later I was still there. I could have stayed longer, but I needed to be back at St George's College for the initial reception for my next course, so I headed off and got to the course reception just in time.

Petra and Amman

2010-04-19T10:19:00.011+12:00

10-11 April, 2010

I went back to Petra early in the morning on 10 April, and this time I headed up to the high place of sacrifice, where in ancient times sacrifices were made on the slightly raised stone you can see in the photo. It was a stiff climb of around 40 minutes.

The view from the top was magnificent.

One of the local Bedouin pointed out the tomb of Aaron on Jabal Haroun (Mt Aaron). It is the white building far away on the top to the mountain.

At the high place of sacrifice I met Don and Najla, who were on holiday from Abu Dhabi. I spent most of the rest of the morning with them, going to various monuments that I had not visited yesterday.

I visited the Urn Tomb, which had a magnificent façade and a beautiful ceiling.

Outside, I sat and had lunch, and spotted a couple of items I wanted to buy. I was clearly not very good at haggling, but I came away with what I wanted.

Petra was an outstanding site, and the Arab Nabataean kingdom was obviously one of the leading kingdoms in this area. The rock was very beautiful and it reminded me of the description of Petra as 'the Rose red city half as old as time'. I loved the way that the site is not over-protective and allows people to do pretty free walking even in dangerous places. That meant that there was a sense of discovering the place for yourself, rather than simply being a tourist shunted around to see the sites. Another special thing about Petra is its mystique as it was 'lost' to history from the 13th and only rediscovered in the 19th century, hidden as it was down the siq.

On the other hand, the emphasis on tombs as the central monuments in Petra seemed a bit grim - especially after the wonderful variety of buildings in Jerash. Coming straight after my Risen with Christ, with its focus on resurrection to eternal life, Petra for me had quite a strong sense of death. I felt grateful to have a strong hope in eternal life rather than a focus on immortalising the dead through the erection of monuments for them.

After lunch I headed back up the siq and returned to my hotel, so that I could get to the bus that was going back to Amman that evening. For a while it looked as if I would not be able to get a seat as the bus was overbooked, but at the last minute I managed to get on, and another bus was quickly organized for the others who needed to go to Amman. On the journey I sat next to a very nice Muslim man, Ashraf, who was working 3 weeks on one week off in Wadi Mousa, while his wife and young son were living in Amman, 3 hours away. Ashraf’s brother was a sheikh (like an ordained minister) at a mosque, but he asked me for my prayers that he would be able to get a job in Amman, so that he could be with his family more. I promised him that I would pray for him when I go on retreat at Mt Athos (my next stop after Israel). I asked him to pray for me when he got his job in Amman. He said that he would pray for me anyway, and remember me the next time he goes to Mecca (which he does every two years.) As we talked we shared matters of faith, and it was a special thing to share with one another in a friendly and respectful manner about matters of faith.

I stayed again in Amman with my friends Rick and Anne and their children, and enjoyed their hospitality a great deal, going to their evangelical church with them the next day. Here Rick and Anne are sitting with two of the church leaders.

At Petra

2010-04-19T09:40:00.001+12:00

9 April, 2010

I got up early, which is what the guide books advised, and was at the Visitors’ Centre before 7am. This worked well because it was much cooler at this time, and there was hardly anyone there, compared to the crowds they get from around 11am.

First, I walked down the siq ( the narrow cleft in the rock that leads to Petra)

and saw the Treasury at the end of it.

Like almost all the other monuments at Petra, the Treasury was carved out of the stone mountainside. Not much is known for sure about the monuments except that they were built as tombs, and dating is difficult. This is most probably from the second century AD, but it could have been created as early as the birth of Christ.

I went on down the Street of Facades and saw the old amphitheatre.

I passed what are known as the Royal Tombs on my right (this is one of the Royal Tombs known as the Urn Tomb), and then the Colonnaded Street (from Roman times) on my left.

I decided to walk up to a monument known as the Monastery (actually another tomb). The road up was steep, but the sight at the top was worth it.

The view from just beyond the Monastery was magnificent.

After spending some time at the Monastery, I headed back down the mountain to the main street of Petra and went to see a Byzantine Church and associated buildings, dated to the 6th or 7th century AD. Just as in Madaba, there were some beautiful mosaics on the floor.

After about 7 hours tramping around Petra, I walked back up the siq to Wadi Mousa, the town just outside Petra, where I was staying.

Journey to Petra

2010-04-19T08:42:00.001+12:00

8 April, 2010

With my ‘Risen with Christ!’ course ending, I had 6 days before the start of ‘The Bible and its Setting’, my next course at St George’s College. I planned to use this time to go back to Jordan to visit Petra, an amazing world heritage site, voted one of the seven wonders of the world in a recent international survey.

In order to get there I had quite an involved journey. I caught a local bus to the Jerusalem central bus station. (A local Arab man kindly made sure that I got the right bus, also sharing some of his breakfast with me). Then I caught a bus to Eilat (I had bought the ticket a few days before). We passed through the Judean desert beside the Dead Sea and then went into the Negev desert. As the bus got closer to Eilat the mountains of Jordan looked more and more impressive.

When I arrived at Eilat, I took a taxi to the border, went through the border crossing, and on the Jordan side I was picked up by a taxi driver I had booked from Jerusalem.

An experience I had at the border crossing into Jordan gives you an insight into what it is like to travel as a tourist in Jordan. When I arrived at the passport both to enter into Jordan, there was a group of Jordanians already there in front of me, having their passports processed. When I arrived, the person leading the group said, ‘let the foreigner go first’. So they stood back while the official put their passports to one side and quickly processed my passport. This is typical of the welcome that tourists are given in Jordan and the genuine friendliness there (and appreciation of the tourist dollar as well, I guess).

The taxi driver, Zakaria (a Muslim) took me all the way to Petra, which was over 2 hours’ trip, for quite a reasonable amount. He stopped for photos several times, including Wadi Rum, where Lawrence of Arabia had led fighters from the local Bedouin tribesmen in the First World War, and on the road overlooking the entrance to Petra.

Zakaria then took me to the hotel I was staying at in Wadi Mousa, the town closest to the Petra site. This was the view from my hotel window just after sunset.

Once I had put my things in my room, I went out to the Visitors’ Centre and bought tickets for an event called ‘Petra by night’. At this event, candles are lit along the path through a canyon (the siq) down to Petra, and in front of the first monument in Petra (the Khazneh or Treasury). Once you arrive at the Treasury (a 25 minute walk) they offer a programme in the candle light. It was quite an atmospheric experience, particularly when traditional Bedouin music was played in the candle light in front of the Treasury.

The first days of Easter week

2010-04-15T09:55:00.089+12:00

5 April, 2010

The week after Easter is known as Bright week or Renewal Week in the Orthodox tradition. It is an important part of Easter, as the resurrection is not just a one-day wonder, but the pivotal event in human history, for which God is to be continually worshipped and praised.

We started the week by going to the Romanian Orthodox Church for their Easter Monday liturgy. The chapel was very intimate - there was only room for about 50 standing up, so I did not impose on that by taking photos. But I took some photos beforehand.

Two young scholars in training for ministry acted as cantors. They sang beautifully, along with the resident Priests. A number of the course participants thought that this liturgy was one of the highlights of the whole course. I wouldn't have gone quite as far as to say that, but the singing was lovely, and the people were friendly and welcoming. I liked the harmonies, and the fact that I could pick up the meaning of a few words as they were said/sung. For me perhaps the highlight was the way that families were treated by the clergy, nuns and acolytes. When a young family came, they were given communion straight away, and not kept waiting. There was evident delight in the children's presence and this positively affected the atmosphere of the church.

After this liturgy we had free time for the rest of the day. Four of us went on to some of the sites on Mt Moriah (now called Mt Zion) outside the old city wall - the coenaculum, which is said to be the site of Jesus' Last Supper, and two of the churches nearby, the Roman Catholic Benedictine Dormition Abbey and the Assumptionist Church of St Peter in Gallicantu (St Peter of the cock crow), where Caiaphas' house is said to have been. This last church commemorates both the sufferings of Jesus at human hands, and Peter's denial of Jesus. Of the three sites that we visited, I found it that it affected me most deeply.

The Church is built in a modern style and has three main levels - the church proper, the crypt, and the basement (caves under the floor). In the church, scenes from the life of Peter are highlighted, amongst other things. The panel on the right has the inscription in Latin, 'I do not know the man' from Luke 22.

In the crypt and the basement level bits of the ancient site were laid bare.

The church is said to be on the site of Caiaphas' house, and some archaeological evidence supports that claim. There are pits or caves at the bottom of the site that could have been used as cells at an earlier time, and right next to the church are the ancient steps that Jesus would have gone down with the disciples, when they had finished the Last Supper in the Upper Room. They may well be the same steps he went up again when he was arrested and taken to Caiaphas.

Just next to the steps, in a courtyard outside the church is the sculpture above. Again the inscription is "I do not know the man.' Note the cock on the top of the pillar, in the act of crowing.

As an architectural masterpiece, of course, you would have to see the whole building. But I hope that this gives some indication of its quality and spiritual depth. The lovely modern architecture, the moving focus on Jesus' arrest and Peter's failure of nerve, and the sense of closeness to Jesus that this site has, made a significant impression on me.

6 April, 2010

On Tuesday we went on a bus trip to the ancient site of Nikopolis - one of the sites that has been identified with Emmaus (Luke 24). We shared a Eucharist outside - in the ruins of a Byzantine church there. It was a meaningful time of fellowship and remembrance. In the photo below our Course Director, Andrew Mays, and our Chaplain, Lois Symes, are setting up for the Eucharist.

7 April, 2010

On Wednesday our outing was to visit sites on the Mount of Olives associated with the Ascension of Jesus. The first site was an ancient chapel that is also a Muslim holy place commemorating the Ascension, and is administered by Muslims.

The other two sites had Russian churches built on them. The first one we visited was the Ascension Church on the Mount of Olives. This was beautifully designed and decorated, and the whole area was lovingly tended by the Russian nuns who live there.

In Eastern Orthodox churches the only time they leave the iconostasis open is during Bright Week.

The second Russian church we visited was the Church of St Mary Magdalene. The two churches are separated by history somewhat as the Church of the Ascension is governed by the Church that worked under the Communist regime while the Church of St Mary Magdalene is run by those who would not make any accommodation with the atheistic Communist regime and operated outside the Soviet Union until the democratic reforms of the 1980s.

This church was also very beautiful, and we sat in silence praying for quite a while. I lit a candle to remember all my Russian ancestors (my grandmother was Russian), and my father as well. He would have loved to have been there.

Once again, the grounds were kept beautifully by the nuns. I even noticed a little pohutukawa in a pot - blooming in April.

In the evening we had a special farewell dinner, and after that we reflected on our time together over Holy Week and Easter. It had been a most memorable time, and it had been such a great privilege to spend it in Jerusalem. I feel hugely enriched by having had this time with the Lord (and with others) in the city he so loved, and in the places that were dear to him, agonising for him, and where he experienced the joy of his resurrection and ascension.

Easter Day

2010-04-08T00:07:00.002+12:00

4 April, 2010

This was a day for recovering from the events of the last few days. There was only one liturgy that I wanted to attend, and that was the Easter service at St George's cathedral. The cathedral was almost full when I arrived and people steadily trickled in after that, until the nave, the transepts and even the choir were filled (there was no local choir to fill those seats). The service was both in Arabic and English and a reasonable proportion of the congregation were Palestinian. The liturgy was fairly standard Anglican and after all the other liturgies I had attended, I enjoyed worshipping in my own language and in a way that was more familiar. One thing struck me as unusual, though. During communion the first piece of music played by the organist was 'A Whiter Shade of Pale', which is a pop-song from the 1960s by the group Procol Harum. At first I couldn't believe my ears, because it is such a secular tune and the song seems to be about some sort of drunk or drugged experience. But as I prayed, the tune led me to a sense that everyone needs Jesus - those who were in the church, those who had been pushing and shoving in the Parvis or the Holy Sepulchre, those who didn't know God at all in Jesus Christ. We all need to encounter the risen Lord who brings life to us and to all creation. These thoughts opened up the opportunity for some heartfelt prayer and a sense of thanks and closeness to God. This moment seemed to be the result of many experiences over this course and is something that I will take away with me when I go. I hope that it will continue to influence my prayers - God's love and goodwill is for all of us whoever and whatever we are.

Easter Eve - Holy Fire (Part 2)

2010-04-07T23:41:00.000+12:00

3 April, 2010

After a bit of recovery time from the Holy Fire event, and dinner, some of us wanted to take in more of the liturgies of Easter. Four of us went to the Ethiopian Orthodox Resurrection services. These were held not in a church but in the Ethiopian Orthodox worship space outside on a large roof area near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. As usual we arrived early, so that we could get in and find a suitable place to stand (or sit if a spare space by a wall was available). Although we didn't quite know where the service would be, we ended up in the right place, just near to the people who were leading the service.

The Ethiopian community were very welcoming and there was a feeling of village celebration. It was very informal, in comparison with the liturgies we had been attending so far. There was a lovely children's choir that sang before the service. It was lovely to see the attitude and actions of the adults towards the children - they were so loving and supportive.

In fact, the Ethiopians came across as lovely, gentle and welcoming people. The young priest was clearly a person of sincere and heartfelt faith. There was a lovely choir who sang beautifully, and with such faith and joy.

And when the holy fire/light of Christ's resurrection came the celebration was beautiful, clearly heartfelt and very joyful.

There was a procession around a central monument in the courtyard - a bit more sedate at the front where the Patriarch was processing under the liturgical umbrella (he had come from Ethiopia for the Easter celebrations)

and more hectic and lively elsewhere.

There were ululations, singing and dancing, drumming and clapping. It was wild, but in such a different way from the Holy Fire at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. This was Spirit-filled in a way that the other event did not seem to be. It was very moving and possibly the greatest highlight of the Easter celebrations for me - totally unforgettable. I hope heaven is like that.

Easter Eve - Holy Fire! (Part 1)

2010-04-07T21:35:00.002+12:00

3 April, 2010

The key focus of the course for this day was to attend the Holy Fire ceremony in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre/Resurrection. Up to this point I had not even entered the Church - only getting as far as the Parvis (courtyard) outside it. In recent years getting into the Holy Fire ceremony has been very difficult, and some of the courses have not been able to attend the ceremony. This year we obtained passes to the ceremony through the generosity of George Hinthlian, so we offically had Armenian tickets. Armenian for a day! This did not automatically mean that we would be allowed into the Church for the ceremony though, as the Police could simply decide that enough people were in the Church and block off access to the rest. So as we left the College we were hoping that all would go well and that we would be able to attend the ceremony.

Only one gate into the old city was open, as a crowd control measure. We went to Zion gate just after 9am, and were asked for our passes to the ceremony, which we were able to produce. We were ushered straight through the Police line and through a door into a courtyard in the Armenian quarter. Around half past ten we lined up in procession outside the Armenian convent, ready to walk to the Church. Even here there was some pushing, as those who were at the front of the procession close to the clergy were more likely to get into the Church.

We set off around 11am and got to the Church about 10 minutes later. We were the first church group to get to the Church, and so a ceremonial unlocking of the doors took place. An interesting historical detail is that the keys are kept by a Muslim family, whose right to hold them has been passed down from ancient times when the rulers of Jerusalem were Muslim. The key hole is half-way up the door!

There was a real crush to get into the doors of the Church, and then we had the job of finding a place to stand. Each of the historic churches that has rights to be present in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre has a designated area. I did not look very Armenian, and it took some persuasion and my Armenian pass to get me into an Armenian area. In the end I had a very good position right near the processional corridor through the crowds. Two of the other course members were able to join me there.

We then had a 3-hour wait for the ceremony, during which we watched processions of the other churches - Coptic, Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic (known here as Latins) etc. We also watched the contention for space with some people (particularly from the neighbouring Coptic area) wanting to stand in the Armenians' space. As well as Israeli Police, there were some mild-mannered young Armenian men in cassocks acting as marshals.

The general level of noise was high. To add to that, shortly before the Holy Fire was due to appear, some Greek Orthodox men were hoisted up on others' shoulders and demonstrated in a highly excited fashion - a bit like a demonstration at a football match. There were shouts and clapping, drums and turbulence.

And what about the Holy Fire ceremony? Well, in a way, this is all part of it. But what I was unable to see from my vantage point is that shortly before 2pm the Greek Orthodox Patriarch enters into the edicule, the structure that encloses the tomb of Jesus, and prays. He is followed by an Armenian and then soon after that the Holy Fire comes out from the tomb. Greek and Russian Orthodox and many others are convinced that this is a miracle and that the fire is lit supernaturally. This is the tradition from ancient times. Others think that the fire is kindled in some natural way. But the event of the Holy Fire is waited with great expectation. And when the fire comes out from the tomb there is a huge shout and upswelling of faith.

Some families have historically been given the privilege of receiving the fire first and racing it around the church to other points, where they light the candles of others and the Holy Fire spreads. (It takes about 5-8 minutes to light all the candles in the church. I happened to be in the area from which the Holy Fire emanates and received it from candle to candle almost immediately. The candles are bunched together, so there are big flames, and the fire risk to people is just another part of the wildness of the event.

As soon as the candles are lit the ceremony is at an end, and people are now asked to extinguish the candles very quickly. Some light lamps with them and take the fire home. The Eastern churches take the fire to other celebrations in Athens, Cairo, the Palestinian territories and elsewhere, in time for them to be used in Easter Eve services. So in a way that makes sense of having the service as early as 2pm. On the other hand, it felt slightly strange celebrating the resurrection so early on Easter eve.

It is hard to say in a few words what I thought of the ceremony. It was certainly an amazing experience, being in such a mass of humanity awaiting the Holy Fire as a symbol of Christ's resurrection. You couldn't say by any stretch of the imagination that it was done decently and in order. An Anglican from the 19th century was famously scandalised by all the commotion that surrounded the ceremony. But why shouldn't the resurrection be celebrated with a bit of wildness and ecstatic commotion? When the power of God breaks out, you would expect some wildness.

For me there was a sense of community with all those people crushed together for that event. We were all there with expectation, wanting to connect with Christ's resurrection. On the downside was the contention for position and a place to stand in the church. I wonder what God makes of it all? I was left with feelings of excitement, amazement, weariness and a bit of sadness. These different feelings have not yet coalesced into anything that is singular or consistent. I'm very glad I was there, but it does feel like a once in a lifetime experience, rather than something I would choose to repeat as a worship event.

Above the fray: A ray of light shines through the smoke into the edicule - the structure that has been built over Jesus' tomb.

Good Friday in Jerusalem

2010-04-07T20:29:00.001+12:00

2 April, 2010

Early this morning we got up to walk the way of the cross (stages of the cross) through the old city of Jerusalem. At 6am we set off, led by Bp Suheil and Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed and Presbyterian clergy.

Once again the crowds built up over time, and we mingled with other groups following the route on this solemn day.

I did not have a strong sense of connection with Jesus as I went on this journey, but thought that sometimes just being there and part of what is happening is enough. I don't always have to feel connected to be connected with Christ. Probably the most moving things for me were the prayers read at each of the 14 stations of the cross. We ended up at the Lutheran cathedral, which was simple but beautiful, with a strong sense of peace and prayer about it. Again, we were able to linger for a while for our own personal prayer, which was helpful.

We went to breakfast in the old city, at a favourite restaurant of the College staff, Papa Andrea's, which is owned and run by a Christian family. One item they had drew my attention. It was a bottle of white wine with the label: "Cana: Wedding Wine of Holy Lend [not 'Land']. Souvenir of Cana." But on the metal screw top part on the neck NZ had been printed. So it was clearly a New Zealand wine that had been relabelled and used for this souvenir of the "Holy Lend". (One of the British people on the course suggested that 'Lend' was very appropriate because it matched the New Zealand accent so well!) It was a bizarre moment on the most solemn day of the year.

We went back to the College for a helpful lecture on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which is known to the Orthodox as the Church of the Resurrection, which I found a more positive name. In the afternoon we went out to St James Armenian Cathedral for a solemn burial service there. It was astonishing. The interior of the Cathedral was hung with 400 lamps, all of them lit by candles, not electric light.

The liturgy was solemn, powerful and deeply moving. The focal point was a beautifully decorated bier that you can see in the sanctuary, and the liturgy involved 2 male choirs, readings, processions, and plenty of incense. The beautiful singing gradually built up to a crescendo of praise to the Son of God who had won the victory on the cross. Through death he had defeated death.

A procession out of the sanctuary into the body of the church.

The choir on my side of the church - singing by candle light.

The whole experience was both very moving and very exciting. It was certainly one of the high points of my Easter in Jerusalem.
We went back to Papa Andrea's for dinner, and had some time to recover and refresh ourselves before going back to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre/Resurrection for a Greek Orthodox procession. Again it was very crowded - although this picture is taken about 45 minutes before the liturgy was due to start, so it got a good deal more crowded than this.

In this procession various banners, a decorated casket with a shroud and flowers in it, the Gospel book and other items were paraded around the Parvis. There was a choir and all sorts of other people involved.

There was quite a bit of grandeur about the procession but not the same level of solemnity that there had been in the Armenian liturgy. This was not such high liturgy, and in fact there was no liturgy at all. Just a sense of being all together, there to see and to touch holy things.

Maundy Thursday

2010-04-07T18:53:00.001+12:00

1 April 2010

Today we were at the Parvis (the courtyard of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre) before 8am, ready for a Greek Orthodox liturgy for Maundy Thursday with footwashing that was going to take place at 9am. There were not many people there when we arrived, but the Parvis gradually filled up until it was totally packed.

The ceremony began with a procession of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch and twelve of his priests to a dais in the Parvis.

The Patriarch acted the role of Christ and the twelve priests were in the role of the disciples. They went up to the dais so that everyone gathered around could see them. (The Israeli police were there as crowd control and to protect the Patriarch.)

The liturgy was mostly sung and was very impressive. It took around 2 and a half hours, and all the while we were packed into the Parvis like sardines. I was probably the most squashed for a sustained amount of time that I have ever been! This is all a normal part of being a pilgrim in Jerusalem for the great services of Holy Week and Easter.

It was moving when the Patriarch allowed himself to be stripped of his outer garment and his crown, and had towels wound around him and washed his disciples feet. Without his cope and crown he seemed much smaller and more vulnerable.

Another moving moment (hard to photograph) was when he came down from the dais and acted out the praying in Gethsemane "Lord, let this cup pass from me". Three times he came back to the disciples and found them sleeping. But someone let him back to prayer twice - apparently indicating that he was prompted by the Holy Spirit or an angel to keep on praying.

By the time the service finished at 11.30am, we had been standing for around three and a half hours in a very confined space. I was glad to go to lunch at the Lutheran hospice. Along the way we slipped into a Maronite (Eastern rite Roman Catholic church) that had a beautiful clean and clear feel about it.

After dinner, a foot washing liturgy was performed at St George's Cathedral, led by Bp Suheil Dawani, and then we had a silent procession following the processional cross (draped in dark cloth) through the streets of East Jerusalem, down into the Kidron Valley and up again to Gethsemane.

This was a very special time of identification with Jesus. I was wearing my father's old jacket as the temperature was not very warm, and felt a strong connection with him too - as if we were going on this pilgrimage together.

When we got to Gethsemane we went to a quiet place and had the reading of the events of Maundy Thursday from Mark's Gospel (Mark 14:12-72). At the end, Bishop Suheil prayed and gave a blessing, and we stayed on there for a while to pray on our own before returning to the College.

(Bishop Suheil's face is lit by the candle.)

Holy Wednesday - Getting Ready for Easter

2010-04-07T07:14:00.006+12:00

31 March, 2010

I woke early this morning and decided to get up and wash some clothes. When I got up to the laundry on the roof I looked out over the city and saw the moon going down behind the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

In the morning we had a lecture on the theology, and some of the history, of icons by the Dean of the College, Stephen Need. This included an interesting outline of the debate relating to the use of icons in worship. It was very interesting to hear a little about the theological issues that the use of icons brought up. A beautiful quotation from John of Damascus – one of the key spokesmen for the group that favoured the use of icons (the iconophiles) was , “I do not worship matter. I worship the Creator of matter who became matter for my sake.”

For him and many others, especially those in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, icons are a holy space through which one can enter into the presence of God and of God's saints in heaven. After the lecture we went into the old city to view a contemporary icon exhibition (no pictures allowed owing to copyright). After lunch we went on to the Greek Catholic (Melkite) Church, which had beautiful frescos as well as many icons. There the course assistant, Ben Drury, gave a good talk on the interior design of Eastern Orthodox churches.

In the centre is Christ, as if looking down from heaven. His picture is held by angels. Then on the next level are angels and cherubim worshipping God/Christ. And on the final level are God's saints. These are apparently the standard design and themes of cupolas in the Eastern tradition. As is typical, the church was highly decorated, both with an iconostasis and with frescos all over the walls and ceilings.

An example of the icons was this one - of Mary the Mother of God (Theotokos) and Jesus.

The frescos around the church depicted scenes from Jesus' life and various saints. Here is a close up of one of the frescos. This one is of the wedding of Cana.

In the afternoon we had a lecture on the themes of the Passion, in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. It was given by Andrew Mayes, the Course Director. It gave good insights into what we will be sharing in with the liturgies of the next few days. In the Eastern tradition, the Passion, death and resurrection of Jesus are seen not so much as a sad and then wonderful story. Rather, they are seen as the purposeful victory of God over the Evil One, and over the powers of sin and death.

In the evening we had a very interesting lecture by George Hinthlian, the former Secretary of the Armenian Patriarch, about the Holy Fire ceremony. George talked about some of its turbulent history and its current state, and helped us understand what would be happening at the Holy Fire ceremony on Easter Eve.

Holy Tuesday: Betphage and the Mount of Olives

2010-03-31T10:33:00.001+13:00

30 March, 2010

We started the day with an early visit to the Latin (Roman Catholic) Church at Bethphage. This church commemorates the events of Palm Sunday. There was a lovely fresco in the apse of the church, which depicted Jesus as riding with only a few people watching him. One figure in front of him is veiled, and we are intended to imagine ourselves as that figure, so that we can enter the event ourselves and be part of it in our imaginations.

Following our visit to the church, we were led in a reflection on the significance of Jesus' actions. An insight that I hadn't really focused on before was that Jesus was making an intentional and prophetic contrast with the Governor Pilate's entry into Jerusalem, so that he could be present at the Passover celebrations to quell riots. The this-worldly kingdom of power and status belonged to Pilate, but Jesus was presenting the reality that there was another kingdom not ruled by power, but by humility. And the powers of the day could not bear to allow this kingdom to live on in Jesus, because it presented too great a threat to their control and their own established way of doing things.

After our visit to Bethphage we went straight on to the Eleona (Pater Noster) Church on the Mount of Olives. This is the site from which Jesus is thought to have ascended, and it is also associated with the more apocalyptic message of Jesus. In this church are over 60 versions of the Lord's Prayer, praying in many languages "your kingdom come". The group stopped close to the Maori version of the prayer, so I asked one of them to take this photo of the two New Zealanders in the group.

When we prayed at the end of our time there for the coming of God's kingdom by using the English version of the Lord's prayer, the group kindly waited prayerfully as I said the Maori version as well.

There was a very ancient basilica on the site of this church, built by Constantine, and this site is traditionally identified as the site of Jesus' ascension. So the connections with the life and ministry of Jesus are very strong here.

We then briefly visited the church built in the place where Jesus is remembered as having wept over Jerusalem - the Dominus Flevit ('the Lord wept') church. The church is designed in the shape of a tear. And on the altar there is a lovely depiction of Jesus as a hen gathering chicks (the people of Jerusalem) under his wings.

We went on to visit the Franciscan Basilica of All Nations, or Basilica of the Agony, built in the place where tradition remembered Jesus to have prayed at the time of his agony in the garden. There is a big rock on which he cast himself to pray, built into the sanctuary of the church.

After quite a "churchy" time where we were part of a crowd, we were led to an area of Gethsemane that is still and peaceful, and where not many people come.

It was great to be able to meditate for about 20 minutes in silence in the general area where Jesus himself often meditated and prayed. A number of us felt that this was a special part of our morning.

In the afternoon we had some time off so I caught up with my blogging, and then we went to the St Antony Coptic Monastery for a Coptic (Egyptian) Orthodox Evening Prayer service. The monastery is situated in old (walled) city of Jerusalem, very close to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the Copts date their presence here back to 325AD. While we didn't understand the service, some of us were told what Bible passages were being read, and we noticed how fervent many of those who attended were in their prayer. It was a strange experience being both on the outside of the event and drawn by the prayer. This was the first of the Orthodox liturgies we are to attend during this course.

It was great to walk through the old city, with its bazaars and narrow lanes, on the way there and back. This part of the old city was clearly in the form of an Arab-style souq.

Monday of Holy Week

2010-03-31T09:19:00.000+13:00

29 March, 2010

Last night the six students on my Holy Week and Easter course and some of the staff members met for dinner and an introductory session together, but today was the beginning of work for our course. We began with a couple of lectures. The first was on The Eastern Churches in Jerusalem, which was a very helpful outline of the 13 historic churches in Jerusalem, along with their points of difference. The second lecture was an introduction to Orthodox Holy Week.

We left to have lunch at a French house called 'Maison d'Abraham" or in Arabic 'bait Abraham'. This is an order of Roman Catholic sisters who welcome all those who are children of Abraham, and of course this includes the people of the three major religions in this land - Judaism, Islam and Christianity. (I'm sure they wouldn't turn anyone else away either. After lunch there, we went up to the roof for a dramatic outlook over the Kidron Valley to Jerusalem. The topography of the Passion was the subject of a short talk, through which we got some idea of the places and routes of Holy Week and the Passion narrative.

In the upper left of the picture, in the corner where the two walls meet you can see a white expanse leading up to the wall. This expanse is the stairs of the Temple that Herod built, which was the one known to Jesus. The valley below the walls is the Kidron Valley.

Following this visit we set off for Bethany. Although it is only 2 miles or so from Jerusalem, it takes 30 minutes in the bus to get there, because of the huge dividing wall built to separate Palestinian areas from Jewish ones.
We visited two churches, a Latin (Roman Catholic) one on the site where Mary, Martha and Lazarus' house once stood, and another (Greek Orthodox) one on the site where Martha and Mary went out to meet Jesus.
The Latin church had been built quite recently by a famous Italian architect named Barluzzi. It had a lovely atmosphere and was surprisingly light.

We had a Eucharist in a little 11th century chapel on the church grounds:

The Greek Orthodox church was dark and impressive on the inside. On the outside it looked fairly normal.

We even visited 'Lazarus' tomb', as Lazarus Saturday (the day before Palm Sunday) is part of the Orthodox preparation for and observance of Holy Week. It was actually pretty clearly that the tomb we visited was from a later period than Jesus.

We are not being encouraged to believe that everything is original and authentic, but rather to connect with the faith of Christians down through the years who have visited the holy sites especially in Holy Week and Easter to find a way of identifying with Jesus, his passion and his resurrection.

Across the River Jordan and Palm Sunday Procession

2010-03-31T02:34:00.004+13:00

28 March

I set out early in the morning to get the bus to take me to the checkpoint at the River Jordan. I had been told by the Lonely Planet Guide for Israel that with a valid single entry visa for Jordan in my passport I could leave Jordan via the King Hussein Bridge, and enter the West Bank/Israel and return without needing another visa. This sounded odd to everyone including me, so when I got to the border I tried to check it out and asked the passport control person about it. "You are welcome!" he said, which was friendly, but not exactly an answer to my question. So I went through the passport control and across a very militarised border into Israel without an exit stamp in my passport. Time will tell whether they let me back in again!

At the Israeli passport area things went relatively smoothly. It was helpful to have all my itinerary and St George's College papers at the ready, because when I was asked why I had come to Israel I could produce some evidence. When the passport official asked me whether I would be visiting the West Bank, I could say that I was going on pilgrimage, and it was possible that I would be visiting some West Bank areas, but only for the purpose of pilgrimage. So to my relief, I was let in without even having to open my bags (although they had been thoroughly scanned along the way).

Outside the border post I got on a minibus for Jerusalem and was surprised to note that everyone in it was speaking Arabic, not Hebrew. Someone later explained that this border crossing was used particularly by Palestinians. The taxi bus took us up out of the Jordan Valley, and with great excitement I got my first glimpse of Jerusalem, the Holy City. The bus took us into East Jerusalem (the Palestinian quarter) and when it stopped I asked the driver where I could get a taxi for Salah ad-Din Street (where St George's College is). He said that I didn't need to get a taxi, because it was the next street on my left. So I trundled my luggage up the street, asking for directions and before long was at the College.

I was met by a friendly New Zealand woman, Lois Symes, who is a Priest, and is currently working as the Chaplain at St George's. She said she was sure that she had met me, and she finally worked out that she preached at a service I presided at when I was Archdeacon of Whanganui. Amazing!

Lois said that there was going to be a procession in Jerusalem that afternoon, and that I was welcome to come on it with her and with others from the College. So I did. What I didn't know is that this procession is an important part of the Holy Week events in the city. It used to start at Bethany and follow Jesus' route through to Jerusalem, but now that the Government has built a wall between the West Bank towns and other areas, the procession starts at Bethphage, on the Jerusalem side of the wall.

We were supposed to bring some item to wave in celebration, and here is Lois carrying her palm flower. I carried a small olive twig.

The procession went up the Mount of Olives from Bethphage

and then down the other side of the Mount of Olives towards Gethsemane

then over the Kidron Valley to the city. Finally the procession went through St Stephen's gate to St Anne's Church inside the walls of the city.

As you can see, there were thousands of people - one newspaper report I read said that there were 20,000 people - in the procession. Many of them were Palestinian Christians. And because the Eastern and Western Easter dates coincide this year, there would have been Orthodox as well as Catholics and Protestants in the procession. It was an amazing experience to join the crowd for this event, going up to the Holy City on Palm Sunday in remembrance of Jesus's entry into Jerusalem.

Amman and Madaba

2010-03-31T01:01:00.003+13:00

27 March, 2010

This morning I went to visit the citadel in Amman, which had been known in Old Testament times as Rabboth-Ammon, in Roman times as Philadephia, and in later times as Amman. It was a large and impressive site, with the remains of a very big Temple of Hercules there, built on an earlier temple site.

There were also lots of remains from the Islamic Ummayad era. From the citadel I could look down on the city, and the big theatre that had been built during the Roman period.

In the museum on the citadel there were some amazing things to see. I saw a piece of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and one of the oldest sculptures of a human form (or forms) ever discovered (from Ain Ghazal in Jordan, and dated to 6,500-8,000BC).

I did think that this sculpture had more than a passing resemblance to ET. Perhaps that's where Stephen Spielberg got his original idea from?

After leaving the citadel I headed off for the city of Madaba (about an hour from Amman), which has a large Christian population and is famous for its mosaics from the 6th and 7th century.

The first mosaic I saw was in St George's Greek Orthodox Church. It is famous because it is the earliest map of the Holy Land. At the top right you can see in darker type the Greek letters IOYDA, which in English are Iouda meaning Judea, and if you look carefully you can see the Jordan River running through the middle of the map (flows from the right, which is north, towards the Dead Sea in the south).

I visited the archaeological museum on my way through the town and saw this mosaic from Herod Antipas's mountain palace Machaerus (now known as Mukawwir) in Jordan, where John the Baptist was beheaded. The mosaic is dated from the first century AD.

After looking around Madaba for a while and getting myself a little lost in the back streets, I came to my final stop - the Apostles' Church. This Church was really only a roof over the original mosaics from the 6th and 7th centuries. There is a mosaics school in Madaba and the mosaics in this church are in the process of being restored by students of the school. The mosaics were amazing - and the caretaker at the site cleaned the dust off a few of the pictures for me and told me that I could walk on the mosaic and take close up photos - so here are a few.

It struck me that the spirit of the mosaics in this church is one of great delight in creation and creativity. None of the mosaics I have depicted is on a specifically religious theme, but they all celebrate the Creator. I had definitely found the best at the end of my visit to Madaba, and I was grateful for the fact that I had got here despite a few wrong turnings.

I took the bus back to Amman, to go to the Anglican Church there for the Palm Sunday eve service that evening. The Church of the Redeemer had been beautifully decorated by the Arabic-speaking congregation.

For some reason - perhaps the familiarity of the liturgy, or perhaps because of connections with my time as a Chaplain in the Middle East, or perhaps because of some beautiful violin-playing - I found the service very moving. I wept as we sang the hymn that begins with the words "How deep the Father's love for us, how vast beyond all measure, that he who gave his only Son should make a wretch his treasure...." Of all the myriad themes of God's blessings to humanity in creating our world and offering us life and new life in Christ, I find the love of God not just for me, but for all of us, the greatest wonder and source of praise.

Mt Nebo and the Baptism Site

2010-03-30T06:40:00.001+13:00

26 March, 2010

Today was quite cold, with rain in the air. Rick and Anne kindly offered to take me on an outing to a couple of places that would be fairly hard to get to by public transport - Mt Nebo, where Moses looked out over the promised land, and the baptism site at 'Bethany beyond the Jordan' where John baptised Jesus.

We stopped for lunch on the western slope of Mt Nebo.

Just behind Rick and Anne and family, in the background, you can see some of Jordan's rugged terrain. The view towards the summit of Mt Nebo from this spot is shown below.

The guardians of this site were the Franciscan order, who have the role of looking after many of the sacred sites in the Holy Land, apparently as a result of St Francis' own visit to that area. I had this picture taken especially for Jean Malcolm. Above Mt Nebo Siyagha, the sign says, "Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land".

It was from Mt Nebo that Moses looked over to the Holy Land (Deuteronomy 32:49-52). He would have seen a sight pretty much like this.

While Moses could see the promised land, he died before he could enter it, and is buried in the valley close to the mountain (Deuteronomy 34:1-8). His gravesite is not known.

From Mt Nebo we quickly descended over 1,000 metres to the Dead Sea, where a discovery in the 1990s has led to a fairly definite identification of the specific site where John the Baptist was baptising "at Bethany beyond the Jordan" (John 1:28). This is where he would have baptised Jesus, and where Jesus had the experience of the Holy Spirit descending upon him like a dove and a voice from heaven saying, "This is my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased" (Mark 1:11). This appears to have been a pivotal event in his own life and ministry, and as a result this must be one of the most significant historical sites for the Christian faith. For more information see: http://www.baptismsite.com/ .

It was raining by the time we arrived at the entrance to the site, so I left my togs in the car! In any case, our visit had to be in a group and guided, as the Jordan River is the border to the occupied territories/state of Israel and is under tight security. An unexpected fact about the baptism site is that it is no longer exactly at the River Jordan. It is understood that the River flowed through the site at an earlier time, but has now changed its path. The site is not even filled with water sometimes, although the recent rains in Jordan had resulted in a large baptismal pool.

(The pillars are left from an early church, further remains of which are under the wooden roof structure that you can see at the top of the picture.)

We were hurried along by a very uninterested guide, but the connection with such a significant event in the life of Jesus at this very spot had a major impact on me.

On the way back to Amman we went up from the Jordan Valley, where we had been below sea level. We passed this sign that says it all:

Jerash - ancient Gerasa

2010-03-28T23:42:00.004+13:00

25 March, 2010

With Rick and Anne's help, I planned my itinerary for the next few days. The first place I decided to head for was Jerash (ancient Gerasa), 45 minutes drive north of Amman. A guide book that I borrowed from them said, "Jerash, formerly known as Gerasa, is indisputably the most complete and best preserved Graeco-Roman city in the Middle East and is noted in the Bible as the “region of the Gerasenes” (Mark 5:1; Luke 8:26)…. The colonnaded streets, plazas, temples, paved pathways, theatres and fifteen Byzantine churches make Jerash the second most important historical destination for tourists [in Jordan] after Petra." The ruins were amazing!

The top photo is of the restored hippodrome, viewed from the south, and that tiny person in front of Hadrian's Arch - built to mark the visit of the Emperor Hadrian to Jerash in the second century AD - is me!

As we walked into the ancient town from the south we passed the sacred precinct of the Temple of Zeus. In an arched room there was a great display of artefacts from the Temple site. The Temple had been built on the site of an earlier Greek temple of the second century BC. They had unearthed one of the stones from this earlier temple, still with the original painted colours on it 2100 years later. (Ray, can Resene provide paint that good?) It was beautiful.

There were many impressive things to see at Jerash, and among those the southern theatre in the city, built in Roman times, stood out. It was beautiful, and is still used during the Jerash festival in July.

I liked the fact that the front row seats were numbered (still) with the original Greek lettering. I can imagine the usher asking (in Greek or Latin of course), "Was your seat zeta, eta or theta, madam?'

One bizarre thing that happened at the theatre was that a lone piper and then two others, one a drummer, came out to play - not quite what I expected in Jordan. The purpose was to earn some money from the tourists, but it was very much appreciated by the locals who were there as well. There were a number of renditions of 'Scotland the Brave', one of 'Amazing Grace', and to finish, they played 'Yankee Doodle'! You had to be there!

After visiting the theatre I made my way down to the hippodrome again to see the very touristy Roman Army and Chariot Experience. This was a display of some Roman army manoeuvres, a show to indicate what gladiatorial games would have been like, and a chariot race. The chariot racing was certainly most impressive and in ancient times was apparently incredibly popular. In a town of 30,000 people they built a hippodrome that could seat 15,000 people. It's like half the greater Wellington population going to a test match or a Phoenix game! We'd have to build a very much bigger stadium.

Just as I took my first photo there, the battery sign on my camera came up, and I couldn't take many more photos. Although that was a disappointment, it was a good lesson to learn early on in my trip. Charge your battery! (And get another one as a spare.) So I will not comment further on the Temple of Artemis, the churches next to it, the northern theatre, and the northern tetrapylon - all of which were beautiful.

I made my way to the bus station - asking for directions in my halting Arabic and enjoying being able to speak to others. I loved the adventure I was having, and when I got home I could hardly stop talking about the trip to Jerash and all the beautiful things there. I was quite tired that evening, but we had an enjoyable dinner with Abraham and Dorothy, work colleagues of Rick and Anne, and with their son, Franklin.