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...

Pilgrimage to the Holy Land: Jerusalem and the Healing of Wounds

Lunch on that first day for the Hope pilgrims is by courtesy of the Sisters of Sion in the village of Ein Karem, the home of the priest Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth, the elderly parents of John the Baptist. The Faith and Love coaches go to two other lunch venues. It is a bit much to expect any one place to feed 128 people for lunch although there are large restaurants on the Holy Land pilgrimage/tourist trail which are geared to cope with coach loads. As my readers will understand, they do tend to lack atmosphere, with some notable exceptions.
Our hosts for lunch today have a peaceful retreat guest house set among beautiful tranquil gardens and the lunch break is not only welcome but a good opportunity for the pilgrims to get to know each other better. Here my fellow pilgrims with large appetites discover that it is a good idea to sit next to me at mealtimes; my appetite is quite tiny and as a veggie I am not always able to eat what has been put in front of me.

All too soon it is time for us to move on, suitably refreshed, our destination the Church of the Nativity of St John the Baptist in the same village. The blue tiles within this church are stunning, and seem Dutch to me, but in fact they have been brought over from Valencia in Spain. This site dates from the fifth century and marks the traditional place of the birth of St John the Baptist. Also in the village we see the Church of the Visitation, where tradition says the Virgin Mary greeted her cousin Elizabeth. There are ceramic plaques which reproduce Mary's canticle of praise, the Magnificat, (Luke 1: 46-55) in some 50 languages.

entrance to the Church of the Nativity
of John the Baptist

The afternoon is drawing to a close and now we are off to the Anglican Cathedral of St George the Martyr in the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, one of four Dioceses in the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East. Here the three groups, Faith, Hope and Love, are to celebrate the Eucharist together.

It was a beautiful end to our day's travels, bringing us all together in this way around the Lord's Table to take bread and wine together, the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.

a gathering at one of the Magnificat plaques

The information leaflet which I find at the back of the cathedral after the service tells us that the Cathedral is home to two different congregations, one Arabic-speaking and the other English- speaking. Services are also held in Hebrew, we are told. There is an adult education center in the grounds of the cathedral, which combines academic study, spirituality and travel in its range of courses. The present Bishop, Suheil Dawani, believes very strongly, as I do, that education is the key for our futures.

another Magnificat plaque!

In addition to the adult education center there are about 7000 young students in the schools across the Diocese. I quote from the leaflet:
“Our schools are educating the next generation of peace makers even as our hospitals are healing the wounds of the present generation.” 
Essential Healing
Here I crave your indulgence while I digress just a little into this whole idea of healing. I think we need to be aware that such wounds are mental and spiritual as well as physical: as such they can seep into the next generation without being obvious. This we have to guard against, not only in Jerusalem and the Holy Land but across the world.

Do we have time? The unhealed wounds of mankind inflicted through millennia of evolution by strife and violence and disaster mean that hundreds of millions of people are psychologically, emotionally and physically scarred and wounded and in need of healing.

It has even been suggested by some psychologists that ‘human culture as a whole has been saturated by unhealed wounding, which, if unchecked, will continue on a downward spiral toward inevitable disintegration.’ (see Judith Thompson and James O’Dea, 2005 Shift Issue 7, May 2005, ‘Social Healing for a Fractured World; a Summary Report to the Fetzer Institute.’

So how very important this healing is. And at the very core of any healing are the spiritual gifts of faith, love and forgiveness.
Anthony de Mello in his Contact with God: Retreat Conferences counseled  the offering of prayer and meditation with Christ as Healer, to mend our inner conflicts and our past wounds.
Alastair Campbell in his book Rediscovering Pastoral Care (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1986) p. 38. explains how ‘the wounded love of Jesus Christ has a healing power because it is enfleshed love, entering into human weakness, feeling our pain, standing beside us in our dereliction.’ This is apt for the places we have visited today and is very much the idea at the heart of the true Wounded Healer, a concept which interests me a great deal in the context of social healing, healing this wounded earth.

The Cathedral of St George the Martyr Jerusalem

And this is something which is very much in the forefront of my mind throughout this pilgrimage to the Holy Land, a place which has seen so much conflict and war, where there should be peace and understanding and respect between the different Abrahamic faiths.

Tomorrow we are off to Bethlehem ... another busy day promised...

Christianity, Creation and the Environment

In my tour of the world's great faiths, and their teachings on creation and the environment, I shall begin with Christianity. It is after all still the faith to which 33% of the world’s population and 78% of North Americans turn for their healing and spiritual nourishment. The ministry of Jesus Christ reflects the very essence of the Wounded Healer, with his compassion borne out of his own redemptive suffering for mankind.
However, throughout the history of Christianity, its followers have tended to think of their relationship with God’s Divine creation in terms of stewardship, which has been too often interpreted as mastery. Faced by the threat of environmental crises, the main Christian Churches have been redefining their theology for some time, as seen in the document from a meeting of the World Council of Churches in Granvollen, Norway, in 1988:

"The drive to have ‘mastery’ over creation has resulted in the senseless exploitation of natural resources, the alienation of the land from people and the destruction of indigenous cultures…Creation came into being by the will and love of the Triune God, and as such it possess an inner cohesion and goodness. Though human eyes may not always discern it, every creature and the whole creation in chorus bear witness to the glorious unity and harmony with which creation is endowed. And when our human eyes are opened and our tongues unloosed, we too learn to praise and participate in the life, love, power and freedom that is God’s continuing gift and grace."

The World Council of Churches again came together in 1990 ‘to consider the issues of justice, peace, and the integrity of creation,’ when they wrote in an affirmation of faith:

"The integrity of creation has a social aspect which we recognise as peace with justice, and an ecological aspect which we recognise in the self-renewing, sustainable character of natural eco-systems. We will resist the claim that anything in creation is merely a resource for human exploitation. We will resist species extinction for human benefit; consumerism and harmful mass production; pollution of land, air and waters; all human activities which are now leading to probable rapid climate change; and the policies and plans which contribute to the disintegration of creation."

The report concludes with a challenge to all Christians, ‘to discover anew the truth that God’s love and liberation is for all creation, not just humanity; to realise that we should have been stewards, priests, co-creators with God for the rest of creation but have actually often been the ones responsible for its destruction; and to seek new ways of living and being Christians that will restore that balance and give the hope of life to so much of the endangered planet.’

Now how many of us who claim to be Christians are prepared to rise to that challenge?
And remember these statements were made over 20 years ago. Have matters changed significantly since then?