Category Archives: travel

In the crypt, and in Heaven.

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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.

Why Thessaloniki?

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Evening play at Hagia Sophia Church

I’ve written already about how my daughters convinced me to make the trip to Greece with them. They had to limit their travel time to about ten days, but I couldn’t face the thought of returning my poor body to the U.S. after such a short period, while it would still be confused from crossing ten time zones. Besides, being shuffled between multiple airports and airplanes, and spending hours in what are at best unnatural and uncomfortable environments — I wasn’t eager to impose that affliction on myself again so soon. So, my primary motivation to extend my visit was negative.

Acheiropoietos Church, underside of arch

But as soon as I began to consider the possibilities this would open up, the idea became exciting in a positive way, and also a little scary. I hadn’t traveled alone in a foreign country since I was much younger, and even then my youthful advantages didn’t prevent me getting into several problematic situations.

St. David the Tree Dweller, Monastery of St. Theodora

I knew I wouldn’t want to join a group tour, but if I could be in contact with even one helpful person in whatever strange place, that would make the adventure seem more doable.

Thessaloniki was the Greek place name that I had heard the most in the last many years. Orthodox Christians know it as a center of culture and scholarship, and a place of pilgrimage very near to that more famous destination for pilgrims, Mount Athos.

Rubble at Acheiropoietos Church

Travelers to Athos typically pass through Thessaloniki, and if a mixed group of men and women are traveling together in Greece, the women might spend time in the many women’s monasteries near Thessaloniki while the men visit the Holy Mountain, where women are not allowed.

And I had known of several people at my home parish who had visited this city for long periods or studied at Aristotle University, or for other reasons lived in the city, past or present. So, very quickly, my choice of Thessaloniki solidified.

Judas Tree

One friend had encouraged me to include at least two Sundays in the span of my visit, so that I could attend Sunday Divine Liturgy in two different churches. That helped me set the parameters of length of stay.

I really knew very little about the place. The first thing I learned was that St. Demetrios is the patron saint of Thessaloniki, and his relics are here, and I began to ask the saint’s prayers for a successful trip that would bring me to his city and church.

Church of St. Demetrios

It turned out to be easier than I expected to make not just connections but new friends, and to become closer to people I hadn’t known well before. They not only answered my questions beforehand and after I arrived, but they provided hours of good conversation and explanations of Greek history and culture.

You have learned from my recent posts how much more I’ve discovered and experienced here – and I still have more to tell ❤️

St. Paul preached here.

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The Apostle Paul visited Thessaloniki on his second missionary journey, when it was called Thessalonica. He stayed in the city teaching in the synagogue and encouraging the Christians for at least three Saturdays/Sabbaths.

Maria and I visited the place where tradition has it that he preached, on which site Vlatadon Monastery was founded in the 14th century. Of all the monasteries in the city, is the only one still active, though there are many newer ones in surrounding more rural areas.

When Thessaloniki fell to the Ottomans in 1430, and the majority of churches were turned into mosques, the wall frescoes were punctured to facilitate plastering over them.

After we toured the monastery church and shady, peaceful gardens, Maria suggested we sit on a bench and read from one of St. Paul’s letters. It was not one he’d written to the Thessalonians, but the famous Love Chapter, I Corinthians 13:

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;  does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;  does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;  bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

“Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.  For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

“And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

-St. Paul, to the Church at Corinth

A city of colorful layers.

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After arriving by plane in Thessaloniki last Saturday, I took a taxi into the central part of the city and my hotel. As we passed between high rise buildings in thick traffic, I was a little dismayed, after the quiet pace of island life, at how much a city it is. I said to the driver, “It’s big, isn’t it? The second largest city after Athens?” He said no, it’s small actually, and he tried to communicate to me how everything is right here and close by, it’s compact.

I am so thankful that in Thessaloniki I’ve been able to keep up with all the walking that enables me to stay literally on the ground and feeling intimate with the place, more than if I had to take a bus or taxi to visit all the places I want to see, or to meet up with friends.

Arch of Galerius

Monday when I didn’t have definite plans until the evening, I walked 15 minutes or so to St. Demetrios Church, and after spending a while there I took a different route back to my hotel, and came upon the Arch of Galerius, and a bit farther toward the sea the ruins of the palace of Galerius, who was the Roman emperor from 305-311 A.D.

I could see up the hill the tower that remains from the ancient wall that once surrounded Thessaloniki, the lower portions dating from before Christ. It was in the 3rd century B.C. that Cassander, the Macedonian king and contemporary of Alexander the Great, first fortified the city.

The map above (In French) shows the area of the city that lay within the old walls, with color coded monuments that have been preserved from different historical periods.

Except for the day we went out of the city to the monasteries, I’ve walked miles every day, back and forth, up slope and down, but only yesterday did I meet my guide Maria at the very top of the city, in the old town, to see one remnant of that old, old, many-layered wall. Byzantine era expansions re-used materials from the earliest structures; I could stare a long time imagining all the people through the ages who laid the bricks and stones, or who lived day to day with the walls framing their community.

From the high part of the city we descended in a leisurely fashion visiting Vlatadon Monastery and other churches on the way. I must tell you more about that later — it’s time now for more walking and exploration.