Travelling through Greece - Holy Monastery of St John the Forerunner

We are at the Holy Monastery of St John the Forerunner. Built on the site of sixteenth century ruins of an old church dedicated to St John the Baptist, the new church, a copy, is just 15 years old. The nuns have not been allowed to use old materials because of laws requiring churches to provide sanctuary and protection from earthquakes; thus the building has involved thick poured concrete with iron reinforcement and 2m foundations! We have been welcomed into the monastery grounds by Sister Theoktisti, very delightful, very English and she is proudly showing us their new church, not yet consecrated because it is not quite finished. The painting in the altar area is still to be completed.
Coming in from the brilliant sunshine our eyes take quite a while to acclimatise within the darkened church, as we stumble in the darkness to take up positions within, some sitting or perching on the narrow choir stalls (deliberately not, we are told, built for comfort, but more like the misericords in our cathedral and church choirs - for discretely perching in long services in days gone by!) There is a wonderful painting of the six days of creation above the six icons leading to the sanctuary. 

We are told that the monastery stands at 1100 metres and therefore gets very cold in the winter and is often snowed. It is not hard to imagine how beautiful it must then look, some compensation, I feel, for the inconveniences the snow must bring.   

Dazzled by the sun as we go outside once more, we make our way to a large covered area beyond the church where we are treated to welcome refreshments and have a chance to hear more about the monastery from Sister Theoktisti. People are returning to the country from the towns, she tells us, to find quality of life again and visitors come to worship at the church from as far as Larisa. There are 20 sisters in residence, and a further eight live just outside Athens. Some have even gone to Estonia to form a community there.
These nuns are closest to the Benedictines in life style, devoting their time to work, prayer and community life. They are pretty much self sufficient, only calling on local traders where necessary to supplement their own many and varied skills. For example they may need an electrician from time to time. They have livestock - pigs, goats chickens etc - and while not eating meat themselves they sell meat for funds - there is a waiting list for their beef because it is so good, being totally organic - and they have a very kind quiet slaughter producing the very best of meat in tenderness and flavour. They have also built up a successful market for their feta cheese. They don't have pets because that may cause contention as to "ownership" - whose "baby" is it?

The nuns grow all their own fruit and vegetables and do Christian art - such as icons, mosaics, carving, stitching etc according to individual skills, (the latest novice is learning homeopathy), much of this work being sold in their shop alongside jams, chutneys and honey etc.. Twenty women living together from 12 different cultures and with 22 languages between them bring their own challenges but it is clear that this also brings an incalculable richness into the community. The philosophy is not to worry about the way things happen. No one way is the only way - but to realise God's greatness and generosity in the diversity of culture. Different branches of Christianity, she reminds us, are almost an accident of birth - the ultimate choice being in our own hearts - we are all able to choose our own route to God if we leave our inherited path. And they never let the sun go down on their anger (See Paul's advice to the Ephesians 4: 26) After saying the final office of Compline every night they have a communal truth session - all asking for forgiveness of misdoings and offering total forgiveness in return. Not a bad plan for family life also I would say.

They are financially poor, but have a richness of life which money just cannot buy.

 

And so we make our farewells, climb the road back up to the coach which is waiting to take us down the Kesovos mountain and on our way to the main highway and our hotel for the night at Kalambaka below the dramatic Meteora Monasteries.

Passing through the village of Dimitra we see storks on their nests on the tops of posts and chimneys, even one atop a church, looking incongruously over crowded where parents were sharing the untidy pile of twigs with their two youngsters. The storks, while revered and regarded as lucky can be a nuisance and some people put dummy storks on their chimneys to keep the real ones away! Here we also see cotton everywhere - on the verges, in the fields, as we pass close to the birthplace of Asklepios and hear the myth of Chiron - and Asklepian healing - explored in my first book Healing this Wounded Earth, indeed the main inspiration for it.

Monastery of the Holy Trinity Meteora mountains

Eventually the Meteora mountains can be seen straight ahead in the distance - It is a place beyond words - but not mentioned by any ancient Greek authors, curiously perhaps. Much more about this amazing place in the next post...

Our pilgrimage continues in Jerusalem

This is our third day of pilgrimage - a long day spent on foot in the old city of Jerusalem itself.

On our way to the Via Dolorosa

We begin the day with a visit to the Church of St Anne, built by the Crusaders in the Twelfth century, and where we say Morning Prayer together. The church stands, austere and fortress like, beside some excavated remains of the pool of Bethesda, where it is said that Jesus healed the paralytic. The water there is believed to have some therapeutic qualities. The archaeological digging has also exposed some remains of a very large fifth century Byzantine church, which was destroyed by the Persians in AD 614. One detail really fascinated me, interested as I am in the concept of healing. This Byzantine church was built over a pagan temple to the Greek god of healing, Asklepios.

interior dome in Church of the Holy Sepulchre

We now divide up into small groups of 20-25 people to follow the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrows or the Way of the Cross, representing at the 14 Stations the route Jesus took to Calvary. All of us have a chance to carry a wooden cross, fairly large and heavy, between two of the stations, and at each station we have a reading and prayers not unlike the liturgies many of us follow in Holy Week in our own churches. I chose to carry the cross for one stage of the journey and found this to be a very moving experience. Many indeed were moved to tears this morning.
The journey along the Via Dolorosa is not without incident! At one stage a man walks along side us protesting loudly - we have no idea of course what he is saying - we can only guess. And it is only when I look at some of the photos later that I see there are armed soldiers standing nearby sometimes. I never noticed them at the time.

The most amusing incident during the journey with the cross is provided by a very well dressed and groomed tourist caught up in our procession. "Oh my God, what's happening," she shrieks to her companion. "Oh no we must get out of here quickly". And she scuttles into a nearby shop, her face a picture of disgust and horror! I'm sorry we upset you, Madam!
The last five Stations are on the roof above the church of the Holy Sepulchre and it is also quite moving to hear the singing of the groups ahead of us and behind us up here. This Church is at the very heart of our Christian faith, where we not only find the traditional rock of Calvary but also the site of Jesus' Tomb. There is a compulsion for all of us to touch the tomb, but of course He is not there!  

the Rock of Calvary

As with Manger Square and the Grotto of the Nativity it is all too easy to be overwhelmed not only with the emotional significance of these sites, but also in a different way by the hordes of photo snapping tourists. The last time I felt a Holy Place was destroyed by tourist crowds was in the beautiful Cathedral in Palma, Mallorca, so spoilt by the throngs of people treating it simply as a museum, nothing more.
No wonder that the best advice is to sneak out early in the morning to visit these places before the coaches arrive!

Incidentally, for those of us brought up on that lovely hymn -"there is a green hill far away, without a city wall" - there is much evidence to suggest that this site was indeed outside the walls of the city at the time of the crucifixion.