’Tis said our monarch’s liberal mind Is like the ocean unconfined. Happy are they who prove it so; ’Tis not for me that fact to know: I’ve plunged within its waves, ’tis true, But not a single pearl could view.
-Ferdowsi (Abu ʾl-Qasim Ferdowsi Tusi) (935 – 1020) Iran
This poem made me curious about the particular sultan Ferdowsi was referring to, so I poked around. The poet lived in Medieval Iran, and from this detailed Wikipedia list of the Monarchs of Iran, it must have been Mahmoud of Ghazni he was writing about. I learned from another site more about the backstory of this cleverly insulting verse, how it is an example of the relationship challenges between artists and their patrons going back centuries:
“In addition to his military prowess, Mahmud was also a patron of learning and the arts, and Ghazni became a cultural center second only to Baghdad. The great Persian poet Ferdowsi presented his epic poem the Shanameh (Book of Kings) to Mahmud in 1010 CE. Although the Shahnameh is recognized as the greatest and most influential work of Persian literature, Mahmud was not so impressed, and instead of paying Ferdowsi the promised one gold dinar per couplet, instead only gave him a silver dirham per couplet. Despite this unfortunate incident, Mahmud is nonetheless considered a great patron of the arts.”
Below are examples of the bilingual coins used during Mahmud’s reign, with Arabic on one side and Sanskrit on the other:
St. John (Maximovitch) of Shanghai and San Francisco reposed in 1966. Twenty-five years later Hieromonk Peter Loukianoff, who had been close to St. John in the last few years of his life, and whose family had known the saint since the time they lived in Shanghai, wrote down his recollections: “Remembering Vladika [Bishop] John.”
Partly this was to correct falsehoods that had begun to circulate in the years since Archbishop John had reposed. In addition to conversations Acolyte Peter had with his bishop about various matters that might be of interest mainly in the altar, he relates many stories from everyday life that illustrate what kind of man St. John was, and the profound effect of his life on those who knew him.
With Acolyte Peter
He conveys how fatherly St. John was with the youth, including alar servers such as Peter — kind and gentle even when he was strict. Peter Loukianoff himself was consecrated a bishop in 2003, and was eventually elevated to the rank of Archbishop of the Diocese of Chicago and Mid-America. He reposed in 2024.
One of the stories is about St. John’s feet:
From the day of his-monastic tonsure, Vladika slept in a sitting position. As a result he had swollen legs and it was painful for him to wear proper shoes, so he wore sandals. At home, in his cell, or when he served at St. Tikhon’s he often went barefoot–not for the sake of foolishness-for-Christ, but because it was easier on his feet.
Abbess Theodora, the late superior of Lesna Convent in France, told how once when Vladika was visiting the convent one of his legs gave him great pain, and she called a doctor, who prescribed rest in bed. Vladika thanked her for her solicitude but refused to lie in bed; nothing could persuade him. “Then,” related Matushka, “I myself don’t know how I was so bold, but I said to him bluntly, ‘Vladika, as the abbess of this convent, by the power given me by God, I order you to lie down.'” Vladika looked with surprise at the abbess, and went and lay down. The next morning, however, he was in church for Matins, and that was the end of the “course of treatment.”
And another story is about his letter-writing:
Vladika’s daily schedule was as follows: In the morning he served Matins, followed by the Hours and Divine Liturgy. After services, if he served in the cathedral, he would stop on the way home in some hospital where he would visit all the Orthodox patients. Arriving home, he would tend to business. In addition to his official duties, he received scores of personal letters to which he would reply himself. (In his three and a half years in San Francisco he received more than ten thousand letters.)
At the top of each letter Vladika always neatly placed a large cross. In folding the letter to place it in an envelope I had to make sure that the cross was not creased or put in sideways or upside down. Vladika did not allow us to lick envelopes shut, and insisted they be opened with a knife. He used to remark with a smile that only Stalin ripped envelopes.
St. John was canonized in San Francisco on July 2 1994.
Saint Demetrios entered the story of my trip to Greece almost at the beginning, and before I end my telling I want to bring him back into it more fully. As I write, I’m still in Greece, but in Athens and on my way home.
The Church that houses the saint’s relics was built on the site of a Roman bath house, believed to have been the place of his imprisonment and death. Emperor Maximian Galerius — yes, the same one who built the Arch and the Rotonda — had appointed young Demetrios proconsul of Thessalonica district, not knowing that he was a Christian.
One of his duties was to put to death Christians, but instead he preached the faith, and was said by some to be a “second Apostle Paul,” for Thessalonica.
When Galerius found out, he ordered his imprisonment, and eventually his death, on October 26, 306. This article tells the story of his life in detail, including subplots concerning his friend Nestor’s martyrdom at the same time, how Demetrios became so beloved of the Slavs, and how he never would allow his relics to be moved to Constantinople.
St. Demetrios mosaic Kiev, 12th century
During the reign of St. Constantine the first church was built on the site, and in later centuries the Christians began using the old bath house structures.
It was during the Ottoman rule when it was a mosque that the underground part became cryptic or “secret,” because whether by their intent or neglect, it was filled with earth and forgotten, until the fire of 1917 that destroyed much of the city; during restoration work on the church the crypt was revealed.
In recent years Orthodox services are often held in the space. I walked up to the church last Friday for Divine Liturgy that was served down there, where so much history is embedded in the stonework and the venerable marble floors.
The day before, the priest at the Church of the Panagia Acheiropoietos had reminded me, over coffee in his office, that there is nowhere on earth that God’s blessing is not present. You might think that He is here in Greece in a way that He is not to be found at the North Pole, for example, but it’s not true.
I have been thinking about that a lot. We Orthodox pray daily to the God Who “is everywhere present, and fills all things.” Also, we experience the eschaton at every Divine Liturgy, when Christ descends to commune with us.
The presence of God has been my experience in Greece, and He will be as immanent as ever back home when I return to the “same old” everlasting mercies of God new every morning. As I embark on my long, long day of travel, I hope I can keep in mind this constancy of grace.
Given the dailiness of our earthly pilgrimage, I can’t be too sad to leave Greece, and at the same time I’m extremely thankful for the short and rich time I’ve had here. Glory to God for all things.
You can’t walk very far in Thessaloniki without encountering antiquity as more than an idea; the present city layout incorporates reminders of previous communities and cultures, the oldest of which had been buried for thousands of years.
The Church of Panagia Archeiropoietos prompted me to think about this when I visited over the last week.
One has to descend a flight of steps in order to travel back in time to when Byzantine Christians first worshiped here.
One afternoon my guide Maria and I found a university student at work behind the church, in a gated area where she had never been. The priest had given him two tasks: gardening, and also sorting and organizing stone and marble chunks of the church that had broken during earthquakes. He couldn’t have been more pleased.
“Would you like a piece of antiquity?” he asked me. “We have buckets of it!” And he handed me a few small souvenirs of my favorite type.
Inside the church, Maria pointed out to me distinctive features of this basilica style temple built in the 5th century.
It was the first church in Thessaloniki to be turned into a mosque when the Ottomans conquered the city in 1430, and Sultan Murad II inscribed his name and the date on a pillar.
Murad II’s insignia
Historians say that the blue-veined marble in the floors and columns of this church was sourced from the island of Proconnesos in the Sea of Marmara. Before the custom of sitting on chairs in church was introduced in the last century, the pattern on the floor imitating rivers would have been more obvious. Near the altar the lines are wavier. The floor is still the most captivating feature of the space for me. How many people have stood, processed, knelt and prostrated on these smooth and cool floors over the centuries?
I joined the ranks of that company this morning, not just to stand but to kneel, because it is Pentecost Sunday, when Orthodox Christians around the world join in three long prayers, in the service of Kneeling Vespers.
The Byzantine Christians built this temple on top of a Roman bath complex. At places in the church see-through panels (easily ignored and walkable for regular parishioners) reveal below, farther down and further back, three previous layers of Roman floor mosaics from that earlier era.
Yesterday I walked a half hour to the northwest corner of what would have been the old walled city. That’s where the Church of the Twelve Apostles is, which I hadn’t seen yet. But I had forgotten some of the things Maria told me about the best time to go, in order to find it open during or just following a service, and it was closed.
That was okay. I’m pretty much filled to the brim from all of the information and experiences of the last days, and was kind of happy just to have a walk in an area I hadn’t been yet. I came upon one wall portion…
… and as I walked around the church, noting that every gate was locked, I saw a magpie in a tree, a cat trying to stay comfortable in the heat, and the most beautiful pomegranate tree.
The temperature has risen since my arrival in Thessaloniki, and the humidity increased, so that I have needed to walk less briskly, and to return to my hotel in the hottest part of the day to rest for a while before going out in the evening.
But I enjoyed strolling back through the center of the city, where the new Metro has also been built in such a way as to highlight the ancient civilizations that lie in its lower regions.
Maria gave me a tour of it also, and from all levels of that central station we got different views of the street scenes that have been preserved. It was the vastness of the archaeological discoveries, when excavation began for the project, that demanded a thorough and extended discussion about how to respect these artifacts.
The main road of the Roman city.
Layers representing Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman societies were found, and the decision was made to display the Roman city. All of the artifacts will eventually be exhibited in a museum, a foretaste of which makes a wall display in the lower levels of the Metro station.
I am amazed at the vision and scope of this project. History is alive here.
Roman artifacts
Because my time in Thessaloniki is running out, I need to tell you about the Rotonda now as well. It is the oldest of Thessaloniki’s churches.
This edifice that was built in the early 4th century by the Emperor Galerius, possibly completed by Constantine when he lived here, has walls six metersthick. As soon as I was inside, I felt the immense presence of the place. The only visitor at that time besides us was a woman sitting on a folding chair and reading, and I knew it would be a blessed place just to sit. But I didn’t want it enough to go back and pay another ten euros to enter.
Some historians think that Galerius built it as a mausoleum, as part of the complex including the Arch of Galerius and the palace. But others think it was built as a temple to a god, possibly Zeus, who was Galerius’s patron god.
Galerius was buried in Serbia in any case, and a few decades later the Emperor Theodosius (probably) was the one who ordered the Rotonda to be made into a church dedicated to St. George.
In 1590 it was converted into a mosque for a few hundred years, and a minaret was added. It’s the only minaret that was not removed when the city was liberated from the Ottomans.
Along with the serenity and hugeness of the church, the remaining ancient mosaics impressed me, with their brilliance and detail. So, so lovely, the art that has survived nearly two thousand years and doesn’t show its age. If my neck were stronger, I’d have craned it longer to feast my eyes on the colors of the birds especially.
I think services are held there on the feast of St. George. One doesn’t have to go down to go back, when the Rotonda is taking you; it sits elevated above the city. You just walk up the hill, walk inside, and there you are.
Gladsome Lights 