Beginning at St. George's College

So this past weekend I got settled at St. George's College, across the court yard from the Pilgrim Guest House where I've been staying. I moved in Saturday afternoon, and am almost used to it now.

The course called the Palestine of Jesus has begun, where I'll be for the next two weeks, touring the land in a much more intellectually engaging and in depth way than before with AIT. The night I moved in an Australian group arrived, now totaling just over twenty people, and later a group from Wyoming arrived. In total it's the Anglican group from Australia, one Catholic priest coincidentally from Australia, the Episcopal group from Wyoming, one solo Episcopal lady from Iowa, and me. Thus far it's a very good group of folks, although there's only one other person my age, a twenty year old girl from Australia named Kate.

So last night we had dinner and introductions. Our course guides are Andrew, the principal lecturer and priest; Louis, the chaplain; Steven, priest and dean of the college; and Ben, the young Byzantine studies enthusiast whose job is to keep the group in order. This morning we were more properly oriented, both to the course and its schedule and to the city of Jerusalem. To the end of the latter, we took a bus up the Mount of Olives to view a similar site as the one the AIT group got our first evening in Jerusalem, but a bit to the south to give us a view of the Old City's quarters.

We got the later part of the afternoon free but it was recommended that we go the Armenian Cathedral of St. James in the Old City at 5:00. This week is the week of prayer for Christian unity; participating churches include the Latin Catholic Church, the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, the Greek Orthodox Church, the Armenian Orthodox Church, the Coptic Church, the Ethiopian Tewahedo Church, the Anglican Church, and the Lutheran Church. Basically, that includes everyone that has a space at the Holy Sepulcher plus Lutherans and Anglicans. Seems we're moving up in the world into the big league, and that makes me happy.

The service was mostly in Armenian with snippets of Ge'ez (liturgical Ethiopian), Coptic, and English. However, at the end, the benediction was given by the separate priests, archbishops, and patriarchs in Armenian, Coptic, Greek, Ge'ez, Arabic, Latin, English, and German. It was the most amazing experience to hear all the great tongues of Christendom come together like that: a small taste of heaven, as the liturgy should be. Afterward, the various priests mingled about in the reception room, and I can't help but post not one but two photos of these blessed men and their marvelous hats.
That's Armenian, Lutheran, Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic, and Armenian again!