2017 Pilgrimage to Greece (fourth update)

We took a boat ride around Mt. Athos & visited the wonderful St. Demetrius Byzantine Church in Thessaloniki.

Our dinner spot near Corinth had a lovely seaside view.

We also visited Cenchreae, where St Paul had his hair cut off because of a vow (Acts 18:18), & the wonderful museum at Ancient Corinth.

Here is our group by the Bema in ancient Corinth, where St Paul was brought for judgement. We had lunch at a great spot that overlooks the old city.

Some of us hiked around Acrocorinth, including Alan Potter. Acrocorinth is a fortress on top of the mountain that overlooks ancient Corinth. It has ruins from the times of Ancient Greece to the medieval period & a beautiful sea view.

We stopped at Corinth Canal on our way to Athens.

Our distinguished music director, Wade Dingman, is here in front of the Parthenon.

Our return trip to Athens included a visit to Mars Hill, on the Acropolis. This is where Saint Paul spoke about their altar to An Unknown God (Acts 17:23). The pulpit at our church has a stone from here w/an inscribed plaque on it. While here, our seminary student from Virginia, Bobbi, read that passage from Acts to us. Mars Hill is behind her. Our group photo is in front of the Caryatids, also on the Acropolis.

While in Athens, we heard from a Greek Orthodox priest, Archbishop Nikiphoros, a friend of John Harriman's. Here he is with Fr. Kamal at our hotel.

Lastly, we visited the wonderful Byzantine & Christian Museum. Faith & devotion are visible in their many beautiful works! Five members of our group left us to return home or travel elsewhere at this point. The rest of us went on to Patmos. I will send one more update about that next.

2017 Pilgrimage to Greece (fifth update)

The first day we had a half-day art and history tour. The second day we had the monastery tour. This is a lovely convent that we started with on a beautiful Greek morning.

The island of Patmos does not have an airport. To get there, we flew to the island of Kos and then took a ferry. Patmos is a beautiful island. Our Bible studies with Fr. Kamal were held on our hotel grounds.

The monastery sits on a hill & was also a protective fort at times.

Another very special spot on the island is the Monastery of Saint John. It dates back to the 11th century. Here is some of the ancient beauty from inside the main courtyard.

The most holy place that we visited during this whole pilgrimage, to me, was the cave where St. John wrote Revelation. This is the view of what he would've looked at from near the cave.

Our guide was Carolyn, from England, that has lived on the island for over 20 years. She recently converted to Greek orthodoxy so had a lot of information that she was passionate about to share with us. We were fortunate to know her.

After our 3.5 days there, we took an overnight ferry back to Athens on our way to the airport.Our travel agent in Greece, John, met us at the ferry in Athens and took a selfie with us. He was great to work with & did a good job booking all the things that I could not.

This trip exceeded my high expectations. Greece is a beautiful, hospitable country. Our people were spiritually focused, kind and generous with each other. This journey definitely deepened my faith and understanding of Saint Paul's writings. I am very grateful for this experience!

2016 - The archives at St. George's College

Nov-Dec 2016

The Diocese of Jerusalem includes Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The headquarters is in Jerusalem with St. George's Cathedral. The property contains a guesthouse, the bishop's home, the cathedral and a college where people can stay and take courses/tours on the Holy Land. The Reverend Dean Gregory Jenks of St. George's College Jerusalem gave me the privilege of working in the archives of the college & the Diocese of Jerusalem headquarters. My main task was to look for evidence of the original property boundaries from when the British acquired the land. I worked hard & found some fascinating things.

Upon arrival, Azzam, the kind man that's head of housekeeping, told me that I was to live in the tower. I'd been to the college & cathedral several times & never realized that there are apartments in the hundred-year-old bell tower. I was to stay in the top one, with 66 winding stone steps to my front door. It’s a two-story apartment with a single gothic window on all 4 sides of the living room. My windows are the top single ones in the tower photo.

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No one had been in the archives for years. There are 2 sections. The first has about 375 books in Arabic, English, Hebrew, Armenian, Syriac, Coptic, French, German, Greek, Italian, Latin, Persian, Turkish & some unknown languages. Several are very old, with the oldest being from 1563. About half dated to 1800 & before, with most of those being in Latin. (Thank goodness for Google Translate!) They cover bibliography, biography, culture, geography, history, language, literature, music, religion, science, & travel. Some were gifts to the bishop. Some from libraries that closed. I cleaned & organized them, then made an Excel spreadsheet with tabs listed by publish date, language, author, category, etc. The second section has about 80 boxes containing hundreds of files that covered many years & several subjects. Some are the Anglican Bishopric in Jerusalem, Arab Evangelical Episcopal Community, Bishopric of Jordan, Lebanon & Syria, the Diocese of Jerusalem, Middle East Council of Churches, and Executive Secretary to the Vicar General. There were lots of records kept from the British Mandate period up to the 1980’s. Subjects include the Consecration of Church buildings, property transactions, claims for damaged properties, tenant correspondence, Cathedral plans, Gift of Episcopal Throne from Oxford England, General maintenance, Sharing a sports field with the YMCA nearby, Proposed road & widening road, School reopening 1948-50, Reconstruction 1948 & a church that closed in 1948 & reopened just recently, Property in other countries, Schools & hospitals. I had never thought about the details and administration involved when ownership or control of land changes as it did in 1948 and 1967 in Jerusalem. As Dean Greg said, there are some PhD‘s waiting to be found in these fascinating records!

A New Testament dictionary in the language of Jesus, Syriac Aramaic (notice the stamp from when Jerusalem was Jordan before ‘67)

Some photos of the cathedral during Advent.