Hi All!

A few days ago, I left Istanbul and headed south to Izmir. Izmir (biblical Smyrna), is on the western coast of Turkey, and very near to a couple of very interesting biblical sites. On the way, I drove through Iznik (ancient Nicea). Nicea was the city in which the first and last ecumenical Councils were held. These were the Councils which were attended by bishops in both the east and the west, before the split of the church in the 11th century. In Iznik, you can still see the remains of the church in which the seventh, and possibly the first, Council was held. The city walls are also remarkably intact.

Since arriving in Izmir, I've toured Izmir (biblical Smyrna), Sardis and Ephesus. All three are interesting, although Ephesus is the largest and most extensive. The remains of the Roman Forum here in Izmir are relatively sparse, but they have preserved the underground, vaulted basement parts of ancient stoas, which you can walk around in. Sardis reminds us that there was a large Jewish community throughout this part of the world even before New Testament times. The large and prominently located synagogue there (which held over 1000 worshippers) is the largest biblical era synagogue found outside of the Holy Land.

Ephesus is huge, and parts are very well preserved, including the Theater which is mentioned in Acts 19:23-41. The same cannot be said of the Temple of Artemis, which is barely visible. However, in the first century, it was a huge building drawing thousands of pilgrims from throughout the Roman empire. It was considered one of the seven wonders of the world. The tourist traffic generated by the temple was one of the reasons that Ephesus thrived, and when Paul and his companions began preaching against pagan worship, it upset the apple cart.

In the first century, Ephesus was perhaps the second or third largest city in the Roman empire, with a popluation of around 250,000 in the first century when Paul was there. It was the capital of the Roman province of Asia, and continued to be a thriving commerical center until around the 7th century when the river that fed into the harbor finally silted up the harbor enough that it was no longer viable as a port city. Today, Ephesus is 5 miles inland.

Unfortunately, I found out yesterday that I have to drop the Island of Patmos from my travel plans. The ferry schedules won't work with my schedule, so I'll have to plan a Greek Island cruise sometime in the future and include it then! Tomorrow, I'm going to head to Pergamum, which along with Ephesus, Smyrna and Sardis is another of the seven churches to whom John of Patmos wrote in the Book of Revelation.

Hi All!

Yesterday, I set foot on the continent of Asia for the first time. And, I did it like the ancients did -- I went by boat! I took an all day cruise up and down the Bosphorus Strait, which divides the European and Asian continents, and which also divides the European and Asian sides of the city of Istanbul. There were some great sights along the way, and we ended at the mouth of the Black Sea, where I climbed up to the remains of what's probably a Crusader era fortress. There are photos on the photo links to the left. (By the way, this "cruise" was on one of the public ferries, and cost the equivalent of about $13.50 round trip. If you're ever here, it's a great deal!)

Today, I decided to go to the Archaeological Museum of Istanbul. That museum is on the grounds of the Topkapi Palace, and within the old Byzantine city walls. The museum has three parts, including the Museum of Archaeology (which focuses on the history and pre-history in Turkey), the Tiled Kiosk (an early Ottoman building which focuses on pottery) and the Museum of the Ancient Orient (which includes objects throughout the middle east dating back to the 15th century BC). Among the objects there are a cuneiform record of the acts of King Nebuchadnezzer (remember him from the last reading from the Easter Vigil?); a Hebrew inscription from the completion of Hezekiah's tunnel (cf. 2 Kings 20:20); and friezes which once adorned the Ishitar Gate of the ancient city of Babylon. There are photos of all of these and more in the link on the left.

Today, I also took another trip on the public ferries (which are very fast and efficient) to scout out where I'll need to go later in my travels. Tomorrow, I head back to the airport in Istanbul, this time to pick up a rental car. I'll be heading south to Izmir (biblical Smyrna), and using that city as a base for the next week as I visit places like Ephesus and the Island of Patmos.

Hi All!

Last night, I arrived in Istanbul and today I got off to an early start seeing the city! That was partly because of my great and terrible planning. What was both great and terrible about my planning is that I have a hotel which is less than 100 yards from Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque, two of the most important sights in old Istanbul / Constantinople. The terrible thing is that both of these sights have multiple minarets (the towers used for calling Muslims to prayer 5 times a day.) In the old days, the Imam would climb the minaret and yell at the top of his lungs. Today, they have VERY loud speakers meant to be heard miles away. Apparently, the first time you should pray is at 6 am! On the upside, I was up good and early and managed to be 5th in line to buy a ticket to see Hagia Sofia!

Istanbul, while not mentioned in the New Testament, is extremely important in church history. The city was founded by Greek colonists in the 5th century BC, and named Byzantium. About 313 AD, the Roman Emporer Constantine (the first Christian emporer), moved the capital of the entire Roman Empire from Rome to Byzantium, which he then very modestly renamed Constantinople in honor of himself! When the Roman Empire split in two by the 6th century, Constantinople was the capital of the eastern, or Byzantine Empire.

The Church of Hagia Sofia (Holy Wisdom), was the Patriarchal Church of Orthodox Christianity, and even though the church is now a museum, the Patriarch of Constantinople is still looked to by over 300 million Eastern Orthodox Christians as the leader of eastern orthodox Christianity. It was in Constantinople that the Second Ecumenical Council was held in 381 AD. That Council, among other things, finalized the version of the Nicene Creed as we have it today. When Hagia Sofia was built (532-537 AD), it was the largest church in the world, and continued to hold that status until the Rennaisance. Even so, you can still fit Paris' Notre Dame Cathedral under the main dome of Hagia Sofia!

Constantinople was the captial of both the Byzantine Empire and the Eastern Orthodox Church until the emergent Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople in 1453. While Christians continued to the live in the city afterwards, Hagia Sofia was turned into a mosque (the minarets were added at that time.) It continued to serve as a mosque until after the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. In 1935, Hagia Sofia became a national museum, and since then, the government of Turkey has tried to restore both the Christian and Muslim hertiage of the building. You can see a lot more in the pictures, and of course, I'll have a lot more to tell you about when I get back.

Tomorrow, I'm off on a cruise up the Bosphorus Strait!

Hi All!

I've been in northern Greece for the last few days, visiting some of the very first cities in Europe visited by St. Paul. I've been staying in Thessaloniki, the city to whom Paul wrote two letters. The archaeological remains in Thessaloniki are relatively modest, and relatively recently uncovered. The Roman Forum, for example, which dates to the 2nd century AD, was uncovered in 1963 when ground was broken for new law courts.

A couple of the larger remains in the pictures are things that the Roman emporer Galerius built. In the late 3rd and early 4th centuries, the Roman empire had already been spilt into eastern and western administative halves. Galerius ruled the eastern part and made Thessaloniki his capital. Galerius, like Diocletian before him, vigorously persecuted Christians, and in fact, made practicing Christianity in Thessaloniki a capital offense. In about 304 AD, a Roman soldier named Demetrius was caught secretly preaching to a group of Christians. He was subsequently jailed and executed by being speared to death. A large church in Thessaloniki, named St. Demetrius, is built over the site of his imprisonment and his body is buried in the church.

Today, Thessaloniki is Greece's second largest city. To reinforce that if you're ever here, rent a car inside the city and then fight your way out to the Thessaloniki beltway -- which is what I did on Sunday when I drove out to see Philippi. Philippi was the site of Paul's first mission work in Europe. Although today Philippi is just ruins (there is no modern Philippi), the remains are quite extensive. However, Philippi continued to be a major city through at least the 7th century, so there are remains of several eras on top of one another. Of particular interest is the Octagon Church, with it's really well preserved 4th century floor mosaics and cruciform baptismal font. Like many Greek cities, there's a high hill with defensible fortress on top (acropolis), which I climbed to get a great view and great photos.

On the way back to Thessaloniki, I also stopped briefly at Amphipolis (mentioned only in passing in Acts 17:1). The site was closed in spite of the fact that the sign said it was supposed to be open at that time. But, I did get a chance to view the area a bit (and there's one photo). All of these towns were connected by a major trading road called the Via Egnatia, which is what made them commerically well off and strategically important to many successive empires.

Traveling between these places is, of course, much easier today than in Paul's day. However, in Paul's day it was possible to travel between what is today Turkey and northern Greece. Early in my travel planning, I discovered that it's very difficult today. There's one train which runs daily between Thessaloniki and Istanbul, which I had been planning to take. However, the masssive rains that Istanbul received about 2 weeks ago have apparently damaged the bridges and so the trains aren't running. Everyone says that there are busses still running, but every bus official I talk to to claims that they don't go there. So, tomorrow morning, I'm taking the train back to Athens and flying to Istanbul from there. Oddly, that trip will take less time than the bus would have!

Hi All!

Yesterday, I visited the archaelogical remains of Corinth, an extremely important city in the first century. St. Paul spent a significant amount of time there, and wrote 29 chapters to the early Christians in Corinth, more than to any other community. (Apparently, they were his problem children!)

Corinth was inhabited for centuries before Paul got there, although the city was sometimes destroyed and rebuilt. Often, the destruction was due to warfare. Corinth sits in a tiny slip of land between the Adriatic and Aegan seas, and rival Greek city states often fought over it. Corinth later became quite rich because they could transport merchandise across the isthmus so that ships wouldn't have to sail all the way around Greece. Roman Emporers (and later Napolean) tried to dig a canal, but were unsucessful. Finally in 1893, a canal was cut, but you can see the bedrock they had to cut through to do it!

Sometimes, the destruction was due to earthquakes, which are prevalent in this area. In Paul's day, the city had recently been rebuilt by the Romans around 46 BC (after having been destroyed by the Romans about 164 BC!) The Romans populated the city with a whole host of people, including Greeks and Romans, slaves and freedmen (ex-slaves). In addition, there seems to have been a significant Jewish population. So, the people that Paul would have met were diverse in many ways.

You'll see in the pictures that the site is pretty broken up. In later ages, the city was destroyed repeatedly, and earthquakes took their toll. Today, the modern city of Corinth is located several kilometers up the road. So, it's kind of hard to make heads or tails of what you're seeing, and it took me a lot longer than usual to figure out what I was looking at. However, I'll put it all together when I get back, and hopefully you can get a sense of what's there by my photos and somewhat longer captions.

Today and tomorrow I'm finishing up sights in Athens. Then, I'm off to Thessaloniki on Saturday.

Hi All!

I'm now in Athens, which I'll use as a base for about 5 days as I tour Athens and the environs. My first impression of Athens is that the landscape is really stunning! The pictures I've posted show some of this, but the sky is even bluer and the scenes in real life are spectacular. Hopefully, the great weather will contine as well!

Today I toured three parts of the ancient city of Athens -- the Agora, the Aeropagus and the Acropolis. Bascially, the Agora is the center of the city. It was here that most of the temples, houses, and official buildings were located. Up the hill is the Aeorpagus. The Aeropagus is dominated by a rock hill called the "hill of the Aeroapagus" which in ancient times was used as a gathering place for hearing disputes. By the first century, it was mainly used as a common area to gather together for all kinds of discussions. It was here that St. Paul was brought and asked to tell the people of Athens about Jesus. He preached his sermon (Acts 17:22-31) at the Aeropagus, probably at the base of the hill.

The Acropolis is the highest point and contains the most recognizable feature of ancient Athens -- the Parthenon. The Parthenon was a temple to Athena, the patron goddess of ancient Athens. The whole Acropolis complex was a temple precinct, but orginially, because of it's nearly impregnable landscape, it was a place for defending the city. In fact, it remained a place of defence for centuries after Paul visited. The Parthenon is in such bad shape today primarily because it blew up in 1687. The Turks and the Venetians were fighting over the city. The Turks were postioned up on the Acropolis and the Venetians laid seige to the city. The Venetians were firing canon balls up onto the Acropolis and at some point hit the Parthenon, which was being used by the Turks as a powder magazine.

I'll be checking out some other sights in Athens later in the week, but tomorrow I'm driving out to Corinth. I'll try to post those tomorrow.

Hi All!

I've been in Rome for 3 days now, and have managed to see a good bit of what I'd hoped to see. Rome is huge, and everywhere you look, there are layers upon layers of history, from ancient to recent. My photos focus mostly on three sights -- the Pantheon, the Roman Forum and the Vatican, including St. Peter's and the Vatican museum. There's lots to tell that I don't have room for here, but I've got lots of material for when I come back! I will mention two things - one having to do with the Church and one personal.

First, one thing I'm learning more of here is that many words used in the church are actually old Roman words, that didn't even have any particular religious meaning to them. For example, the term "basillica" simply meant a large, covered building with one main and two side aisles. Usually, these were government buildings used for legal proceedings. However, as churches began to need larger spaces after the legalization of Christianity, and started using old Roman "basillicas" for worship, the term came to mean a big church. Also (and I did know this before), the title of Popes (Pontificus Maximus) was originally a term used by the Roman Emporers.

The personal thing I'm very grateful for is the ability to use English while in Italy. My bad Spanish is good enough to help me understand a little bit of Italian, but it hasn't helped me very much in trying to talk to people. But, I'm starting to realize that lots of Europeans use English as their international language (much the way people in the first century used Greek.) This was driven home to me when I was sitting in a cafe having lunch yesterday, and a bunch of German guys sat down at the table next to me. Only one of them spoke a little English, but he needed that English to commuicate with the waiter who spoke only Italian and some English. So, I ended up helping the Germans figure out the English words they needed to communicate with the waiter. And when my German is better than their English, it's bad!

Tomorrow, I fly to Athens, and will be in Greece for a little over a week. I'll be visiting a lot of places that St. Paul visited and wrote to. For now, I'm getting into my journeys with Paul by reading Paul's letter to the Romans, since I am, after all, in Rome!