The Prayer of the Heart

What in the world is the prayer of the heart?

The prayer of the heart, or the Jesus prayer, is an ancient prayer drawn from the Scriptures and expressed as the simplest petition one can offer: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner....

The best-known work on the prayer is the anonymously authored classic of Russian spirituality, The Way of the Pilgrim. It's definitely worth reading, but it presumes certain convictions on the part of the reader. It assumes, first of all, that the reader is acquainted with repetitive, ritual, and liturgical forms of prayer, which most Americans just aren't. It also presumes belief in the Orthodox concept of salvation, called theosis, which most Americans don't.

So I offer this as my humble introduction to the prayer of the heart which has accompanied the way of this pilgrim for these four months. I also hope it will be a useful introduction to the theory and practice of prayer ropes and prayer beads as well as the deeper meditative nature of prayer. I write this not as an exhortation to conform to a spiritual practice, but as an invitation to join with me in a prayer that has brought profound comfort to me through the stress of my travels.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner....

Most basically, you need to know that you don't just say the prayer once. You repeat it over, and over, and over. It's a drumming beat.

The prayer is not meant to be a one-time petition; indeed, its less a petition than a meditation. American Protestantism has almost entirely lost the art of contemplative prayer, as opposed to the petitionary prayer that dominates our worship services and daily devotions: "Lord, I just want this; Jesus, I'd like that." And I certainly don't mean selfish petitions! By no means! "Lord, I want peace of mind for this brother and sister in Christ who is in deep need; Jesus, I just pray to you for the work of this Christian orphanage in such and a such a place."

But petitionary prayer is not the sort of deep communion with God that prayer has always offered. For that, we require the flip side of the coin: contemplative, or meditative prayer. In this sort of prayer we search for an inner silence so we can hear the still small voice of the transcendent and imminent God. Most often, we look for this by the quiet reading of the Scriptures; the ancient liturgical art of Lectio Divina, or Sacred Reading, is a contemplative, very slow, out loud reading of the Scriptures. Petitions are an important facet of prayer; but prayer-as-communion requires going further.

The Jesus Prayer stands as the hinge between petitionary and meditative prayer. It's a petition for Christ to have mercy on us, whether for our sins or in the hardships we face because of the fallenness of the world; but it's equally a reflection on the essential truth of the Christian faith: that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is boundlessly merciful to us wretched sinners.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner....

The repetitions of this prayer can go on silently, in the background of your mind, all day (and when you really get into it, in your dreams as well). When beginning, as advised in the The Way of the Pilgrim, one should take a significant time alone- several hours over the course of several days- in order to simply pray the prayer. Only then can it get into your subconscious in such a way that is spontaneously prayed in the midst of everyday activities, as I chat with others, as I wait in line for a bus, as I type this post.

The prayer, you see, is not meant to be something you pray in the forefront of your mind all day and night. We're not monks; we have vocations to attend to. Rather, it is meant to form a constant background to your life-experience. Repentance toward God is not a one-time event that 'gets us saved' or something we do after we've sinned; rather, it is an attitude we must actively cultivate in order to inform our everyday interaction with God, other persons, and the world.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner....

I say this specifically as I anticipate two objections to the practice of repetitive, nigh-subconscious prayer: one very American-Protestant, the other very Lutheran.

On the one hand, you might say, how can such a prayer be truly meaningful if it isn't prayed sincerely and in the foreground? This objection, I think, is a sad symptom of our American obsession with petitionary prayer, on the one hand, and authenticity, on the other. Yet as I said, the Jesus Prayer stands on the hinge between petitionary prayer and contemplative prayer. It is voiced in the words of a petition, yes, but contemplative prayer is as much a dialogue between us and God as it is a lone cry out to God. It is repeated over and over less because we are calling out again and again (and again!) to God than it is because in these words, from our tongue, God is crying out again and again (and again!) to us to live in the light of the answer of this prayer: Yes, I do! I shall always have mercy on you, my child!

Prayer does not begin with the presence of God, but with his absence. We cry to the Lord in our distress not because he is visibly there, but because he seems so far. The prayer is repeated because it is a seeking for the presence of God, ready to come to the foreground in the most difficult situations precisely because it is always there in the background. Many times on this journey I have found myself suddenly in a tight spot, in need of aid, and have found that rather than beginning to stumble onto words, the words were already on my lips! Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner!

But how can this been truly the authentic voice of the Spirit if its a ritual? And how can it be authentic if I'm hardly even aware of praying it? For that, I think we need to revisit our understanding of authenticity. What is truly real is not the glamorous or the spontaneous, the sudden ecstatic outburst or the words of our own mouths, but those deep things within us that inform our world and transform our lives, even when we're barely aware of them.

I think this response goes a long way toward meeting the Lutheran concern, which I myself have had to struggle with as a sincere adherent of Luther's theology. How can I pray this prayer for mercy, over and over, when I believe that God has already declared me as sinless as possible, and as righteous as Christ? And how, when that declaration came about not even by 'choosing Jesus' or saying the 'sinner's prayer' (as most evangelicals believe), but only by his unmerited grace?

In the first case, by I point to everything I said above. This is less a petition than it is a contemplation; and it is less my crying out to God than it is a lesson in the right order of things- Jesus of Nazareth is Lord, Messiah, and Son of God, and I am a sinner in need to his mercy- that shapes who I am and where I am in God's creation. So if you, like me, believe that justification is by grace alone through faith alone, and are concerned at the nature of this repetitive, ritual prayer of the heart, go back and reread what I wrote to our Protestant brothers and sisters.

But second, I would emphasize that if we, as Lutherans, are to be serious that justification is by 'double forensic imputation'- that is, our sin is legally credited to Christ crucified, and his righteousness is legally credited to us- and not by the growth in visible righteousness as Catholics believe, then we need to get serious about sanctification. For when we say that Christ is regarded as our sin, and we are regarded as Christ, the Catholic response is that we believe in a 'legal fiction' and are accusing God of willful ignorance; but if God is to be God, let us be clear that in legally regarding us as the righteousness of Christ, we have no doubt that we one day will be transformed from glory (of our legal partaking in Christ's righteousness) to glory (of our visible partaking in Christ's righteousness). For me, praying the Jesus Prayer means getting serious about sanctification.

But enough of arguments. After all, my point is not to convince anyone to pray this prayer, but merely to share my experience of it; I only counter these objections in order to defend my own actions.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner....

Back to the practice of the prayer itself.

One thing that helps me pray the prayer throughout the day has been timing it with my breathing, as suggested in The Way of the Pilgrim. At first this is fairly difficult, since during hours and days of practice you need to really pray it quietly, but out loud. That's how you drum it into your head. But eventually you let your voice fade away, and only your lips continue. Once I got to this point, I timed it as such:

(while breathing in): Lord Jesus Christ...
(while breathing out): ...Son of God...
(while breathing in): ...have mercy on me...
(while breathing out) ...a sinner...

And on the next breath, you start right over again, with 'Lord Jesus Christ...'

Eventually, you can even let your lips slide and just flick your tongue in the now-familiar motion. It is also said in The Way of the Pilgrim to time the words and syllables to your heartbeat; personally, I've never found this helpful, as my heartbeat and my natural breathing rhythm are simply off, and the syllables don't line up most of the time. But if it works for you, or if the heartbeat works better than the breathing, go for the other or both.

A note on the structure of the prayer: some time, word out the fullest meanings of each word of the prayer. It's fascinating, and for those of you, like me, who enjoy a bit of biblical, theological, and historical study, it's an excellent way to incorporate your intellectual interests into your prayer life. For instance:

Lord. In Hebrew, this could be Yahweh, the personal name of the one patron deity of the Hebrews, who we know under the name Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It could also be Adonai, the term in Hebrew used when 'Yahweh' cannot be spoken aloud with a meaning of 'master' or 'suzerain.' This is a fun place to incorporate the scholarly work of an M.G. Kline or a Michael Horton on the parallelism between the covenant at Sinai and the suzerainity treaties of the Ancient Near East (if that makes no sense, don't worry). And then there's the Greek, Kyrie, which brings me back into the central spine of this prayer: "Kyrie eleison," "Lord have mercy." And then there's the Latin Dominus, where I incorporate the parallelism between Paul's 'Jesus is Lord' and Roman imperial ideology/theology's "Caesar is Lord," which in turn contrasts the Kingdom of God with the Imperium Romanum.

And you can go on and on, with each word of the prayer. I suppose if you really want to hear my personal reflections on each one, you can email me, but I won't bore you with them here. My simple point is that the prayer is absolutely packed with meaning.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner....

A second note about the structure: not with every word, but with its overall trust, the prayer descends from the highest heights of Godhead (Lord, Yahweh) down to me, a sinner. Strange to think about, given the Orthodox theology of sin, but as a Lutheran what petition better expresses the total depravity of humankind in contrast to its righteous Creator?

Indeed, if this were a prayer designed for one-time petition, it's a rather depressing one. It begins with the Lord, yes, but it ends with 'a sinner.' It's designed to be repeated: the final word 'sinner' demands that we run back to the 'Lord,' beginning the prayer anew with every breath.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner....

So a word about the chotki, the Orthodox prayer rope. It's a series of knots tied together in a circle, with a cross usually hanging off of it. They come in a number of varieties, with varying number of knots; mine is the 100-knot variety, with three blue beads and the cross punctuating each series of twenty-five petitions. It's not as though I need to keep track of how many times I've prayed (the Orthodox do, but I feel a little uncomfortable keeping track of a supposedly ceaseless prayer). Rather, the chotki reminds me to pray, and hear Spirit calling to Spirit within me. Moving my now-calloused thumb from knot to knot pushes me to continue these repetitions when my soul becomes, my body lazy, and my mind weak, so that when true laziness, or weakness, or exhaustion come, the prayer of the heart will be right there. I find it useful; you may not. That's fine!

Certain Lutherans going straight back to the sixteenth century have incorporated this ancient prayer into a theologically-acceptable version of the rosary, as well. Unlike the Anglican version of the rosary, which is physically different from that used by Catholics, Lutherans like me (hardly in the majority) use one that is identical in organization to the Catholic version. It is a loop of five 'decades,' or ten beads, separated by four distinctive beads, with a fifth central piece containing an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary. From this Marian piece hangs another series of beads, five in all, with the two beads farthest up and farthest down on this hanging bit that are also distinctive from the inner three. At the bottom hangs a crucifix.

Yet whereas the decades on the Catholic rosary are used to recite the Hail Mary ("Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus Christ. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death), the Lutheran version employs these decades to pray the Jesus Prayer. Using the rosary, I work my way up from the crucifix, where I invoke the name of the Trinity ("In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen."), I pray the Nicene Creed on the first distinctive bead; three prayers of the heart on the next series; a Gloria Patri (Blessed be the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and evermore shalt be, world without end, amen.) on the chain between the uppermost of these three and the next distinctive bead; and an Our Father (i.e., the Lord's Prayer) on the second and uppermost of these distinctive beads.

Skipping the Marian image, I proceed directly to the first decade of ten Jesus prayers; at the chain between the last of the decade beads and the connecting distinctive bead, I pray the Gloria Patri, and then the Our Father on the distinctive bead. This process repeats five times until I reach the image of Mary again. Here, I pray the pre-Tridentine Hail Mary; that is, the first two sentences, taken from Luke 1:28 and 1:42, without praying the third sentence, added by the Council of Trent, which prays directly to her for intercession on our behalf. Then I just reverse the order down the last beads- the Our Father, the Gloria Patri, the Jesus Prayers, and the Nicene Creed- before finishing "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen."

Here's a very similar summary: http://www.giftsofaith.com/Files/lutheranrosary.pdf

Why this excursus into the Lutheran rosary? Well, besides the fact that I've mentioned it in my posts before without explaining, it helps illustrate the multifaceted uses of the Jesus Prayer. The prayer of the heart is there so that we can "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17), and it is largely meditative and contemplating. But it's also a petition, as it is most obviously in this Lutheran rosary. That is why I pray this version of the rosary before church; for that is when I most thoroughly need to ask for God's mercy upon this sinner, when I prepare my heart and mind to receive him who comes to us in his body and blood.

And here I note that as with all great spiritual practices, there is the threat of pride. What I must strive to remind myself is that praying the prayer of the heart does not bring about God's mercy; if anything, God's mercy is bringing about this wellspring of prayer within my heart. And it is not in actually doing deeds of righteousness, whether in saying the prayer or just being a good person, that I am actually made righteous; the righteousness of Christ, legally imputed to me, is rather the foundation of why I am transformed into a better person, first inside, then out. And still better, it is not in cultivating an attitude of repentance, or asking for God's repentance, that I am prepared to receive Holy Communion, but rather I am humbled by the declaration of 'righteous' which alone allows me to partake of the glory of God incarnate.

Even so, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner....

Athens

The night train to Athens was only a night train inasmuch as it ran at night; fortunately, my first class Eurail ticket allowed me to sit in a quieter compartment with five other people rather than in a rowdy car. So between sleeping pills, earplugs, a facemask, and three days of exhaustion from Mount Athos, I think I got a good five hours of sleep before arriving at 6am.

From the train station I worked out the metro system (boy am I glad I took a little Greek) and found my way to Monasteraki Square. Monasteraki and Syntagma Squares are the two ends of Ermou Street, the main artery through Athens' nicest neighborhood, the Plaka. My hostel was right off Monasteraki; it's run by internationals, and called Athenstyle. Like Jimmy's Place in Selcuk and Fauzi Azar in Nazareth, I highly recommend it. Their lobby is part lounge, part cafe and bar, and part tourism bureau; better yet, they have a rooftop bar and lounge with a nightly happy hour and an unbeatable view of the Acropolis.

Since it was seven in the morning by the time I got there, my room obviously wasn't ready, but they were happy to let me crash on the couch downstairs in the pool hall. So after three hours of catching up on sleep, I got up around 10:30 and began my Rick Steves walking tour of Athens.

Athens can be magnificently charming, or horrendous. You have to have a good guide, and once again, Rick Steves didn't disappoint. I hopped the metro to Syntagma Square, and the tour took a meandering four hours before getting back to Monasteraki, a mere one kilometer away from the starting point.

If Monasteraki Square is the social and cultural center of Athens, Syntagma Square is the center of its political and economic life. Coming up from the metro station the first thing I saw was the parliament building. I'd arrived at the top end of the hour, so I got to witness the changing of the evzone guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (right), which sits just in front of parliament. The evzone guards left a little something to be desired (I mean, I've seen the British and the Danish do it), but the tomb was excellent: the shallow relief is of a dead Greek soldier, depicted with his shield. Spartan! Come back with your shield... or on it!

From here took me along Ermou street, a wide, brick-paved pedestrian thoroughfare with just the occassional moped- just like Ben Yehuda St. in Jerusalem, but like the pedestrian way in Istanbul, much longer. I walked around and saw three or four beautiful Greek churches. Unfortunately, after an earthquake, the Metropolitan Church of Athens, the leading church of Greek Orthodoxy (though not of worldwide Orthodoxy; that's St. George's in Istanbul), is covered in ugly scaffolding inside and out. However, a number of smaller churches are little treasures, especially the Church of Kapnikarea and the Church of Agios Eleftherios.

In the courtyard of the Metropolitan Church, though, is a statue of Greek Archbishop Damaskinos erected by the local Jewish population. During the Nazi occupation, he risked formally speaking out against the deportation of Jews to the rumored camps. When the Nazis threatened to put him before a firing squad, he said that he should be hanged instead, in proper Orthodox tradition. He survived.

Nearby to these churches is the wonderful Agia Filotheis St., which is sort of a Greek Orthodox emporium of church supplies. Vestments, icons, censors, lamps, and whatever else you can think of can be purchased on this street. I didn't have the time or money to shop, but I managed to snag a picture of an iconographer at work.

Dipping farther south, I walked into Hadrianopolis, the area outside classical Athens that was refounded by the Emperor Hadrian (much as he refounded Jerusalem as Aelia Capitolina, but here out of love for the native culture rather than disdain). The centerpieces of this area are the Arch of Hadrian and the Temple of Olympian Zeus. The former was built to commemorate the completion of the latter; the side facing classical Athens contains an inscription "This is Athens, ancient city of Theseus;" the opposite frieze, facing Hadrianopolis, says "This is the city of Hadrian, and not of Theseus." Ouch.

The Temple of Olympian Zeus is now a series of six or so clustered columns and two outlying stragglers; it's rather difficult to get the overall impression. What I think is really significant about it is that alongside the statue of Zeus that served as the object of worship was a statue of Hadrian himself, likewise worshiped as a god on earth. Once again, the imperial cult raises its head; I promise, that post on Jesus, Paul, and Caesar will come.

After winding me past the Lysicrates Monument and Lysicrates Square, and taking me through the quaint white-and-blue streets of the Hellenic islander neighborhood Anafiotika, the guide led me out to the Roman Forum and its Tower of the Winds. The Tower of the Winds is an octagonal, domed structure that has eight reliefs of persons representing the eight winds. The tower itself served as a sundial, waterclock, and astronomical chart.

Finally, walking past Hadrian's Library, I came back to Monasteraki Square. At this point it was already 3pm, and all the archaeological sites were closing down. So I got on the internet for awhile and eventually went up to enjoy the company of other young international travelers on the roof.

The next morning it was time to take in the heavy-lifting: the Agora and the Acropolis. Note, of course, that both of those are common nouns; but they get capitalized here, because Athen's agora is the Agora, and Athen's acropolis is the Acropolis.

The Agora was the central place of political, social, economic, and intellectual activity; only in the cultural and religious fields did the center of focus shift southeast to the Acropolis. The Agora contained places for public debates on philosophy; the bouleterion, the seat of the democratic leadership of Athens; stalls and arcades for merchants; a theater (properly an odeon) for musical performances; the ceremonial parade grounds leading up to the Acropolis; and even temples to the Mother Goddess (the Matroon) and Hephaistos. The Stoa of Attalos has been meticulously reconstructed and now houses the Agora Museum; the Temple of Hephaistos, god of blacksmiths (notice the mercantile theme, as well as the Matroon's agricultural patronage), has been blessedly preserved, much like the Parthenon. All of this made for an excellent two hour stroll through the site.

From there it was a very pleasant fifteen minute walk up the Panathenaic Way up to the Acropolis. I'm not entirely sure what to say about it. The Parthenon, dedicated to Athena the Virgin (virgin = parthenos), patronness of the city, is an unbelievable combination of sheer bulk and masterful architecture. It uses a series of optical illusions to keep its bulk from appearing unbalanced, by widening the columns at the end, having them tilt inward ever so slightly, and adding a gradual curvature to the floor so that the middle sticks up about an inch from the sides. So yes, I mean, it's the Parthenon.

The other structures were just as impressive, though. The Temple of Athena Nike, just to the right as one passes through the Propylaea, is dedicated to the victory of Athena and the Athenians over the Persians, and to ensure her continued support as the Athens fought the Persians in the Peloponnesian War. Note: the Athenians lost. Unfortunately it is currently undergoing extensive renovation; the entire temple is being disassembled, transported elsewhere brick by brick, where each bit will receive a thorough cleaning, and then it will be put back together again on site. At present, it's covered in scaffolding and cranes, and half the temple just isn't there.

There's also the Erechtheion and its Porch of the Caryatids. It occupies the oldest-inhabited site on the Acropolis where the Mycenaeans originally built their palace, and it was dedicated to Athena Polias, the 'Protector of the City.' When the Persians sacked the city and burnt the original Acropolis complex to the ground, Pericles took the statue of Athena Polias- an olive-wood satue dating to 900 BC- in order to save it so that she might, in turn, save them.

Oh, and of course, there's my own personal interest: the Romans decided to plop down their own temple, fittingly to the goddess Roma. Ah, the imperial ideology/theology rears its head again.

A fun note: the Acropolis' east side contains a large Greek flag with a history of its own. When the Nazis entered Athens in April of 1941, they ordered the evzone guard (the same unit at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier) to remove the flag. He took the flag down, wrapped it around himself, and jumped to his death. A month later two Greek teenagers scaled the Acropolis, took down the Nazi flag, and raised the Greek flag back up.

Well, my camera ran out of batteries, so I wasted a few hours recharging it, by which time most of the sites were closed. So it was another afternoon on the internet and night on the roof. The good news: 1.80 euro will buy you a delicious gyro or souvlaki pita in Monasteraki Square. Seriously, you can do Europe on a tight budget, no problem, if you stay in dorms at hostels and let the staff point you in the right direction. I wasn't in a dorm here, but I've since switched my plans for Rome.

Anyways, this morning I went to the National Archaeological Museum of Greece, the greatest collection of Greek art and finds anywhere in the world. It was just jaw-dropping; and like the museums in Istanbul, they let you take pictures.

The highlights:

The Archaic-era Kouros figures (note the Egyptian influence), young nude men with a creepy smile:

The classical-era bronze Zeus/Poseidon, in mid-throw of a missing lightning-bolt or trident:

The ancient replica of the Parthenon's statue of Athena, holding Nike in her palm; for reference, the original Nike was six feet tall:

The Hellenistic-era bronze Paris, handing an apple to the winner of the ill-fated beauty contest that kicks off The Iliad:

And the Roman bronze of Caesar Augustus, with its return to the stoicism of classical Athens:

I was also a fan of the creepy bird-people:

There was also this other statue of Aphrodite and a satyr (I think), but I didn't get a look at the label because of a huge crowd of artists on the floor drawing it. If anyone can tell me its significance, much appreciated:

Well, I returned to the Roman Forum and the Library of Hadrian for the afternoon since I hadn't been able to go in before, but my Acropolis ticket happily covered those two sites as well as several others (including the Agora), so I figured I'd give those priority. I never made it to the Byzantine and Christian Museum or to the Acropolis Museum, but I certainly made the best of three days in a city that inexplicably shuts down at 3pm.

This afternoon I headed off by bus for Ancient Corinth, the village ringing around the ancient city's archaeological site about three miles outside the wholly uninteresting modern Corinth. With any luck, I'll be going up the Corinthian acropolis tomorrow morning and seeing the archaeological site and its museum before the 3pm closing. Wish me luck.

Christos anesti! Alithos anesti!

Athos, the Holy Mountain

Mount Athos. The beating spiritual heart of the Eastern Orthodox world.

There's no summarizing. I'll just tell the story, and make some observations at the end.

Going to Mount Athos requires getting a permit up to six months ahead of time, which I did back in November. I then had to contact the monasteries by fax and telephone, getting up in the early hours of the morning (3 or 4am), in order to reserve stays at these prestigious monasteries. And thanks to the one day delay in Istanbul, I had to call the Pilgrim's Bureau in Thessaloniki and scramble to rearrange the three nights and four days during which I, one of eight non-Orthodox pilgrims admitted per day (compared to a full hundred Orthodox pilgrims), could go to the Holy Mountain. I spent a good deal of time worrying whether I had actually properly reserved my stays, and whether I would get into the monastery on the third, unanticipated day. When will I learn that providence and hospitality are a combination that overpowers even our deepest existential anxieties?

I arrived at Thessaloniki around 10am after a decent night's sleep on the train (better than I'd expected, despite wake-up calls from both Turkish and Greek border officials). Thessaloniki can be seen in a full day, but you've got to start earlier than 10. Nevertheless, I got around to Agious Dimitirous (above) and Hagia Sophia (right) churches; the former is the largest church in Greece and the site of the martyrdom of St. Demetrius, and the latter is a miniature copy of the eponymous church in 'Constantinopolis.'

There are also a number of third century ruins from the time when Galerius, a 'Caesar' (subbordinate to an 'Augustus') of the Eastern Roman Empire made Thessaloniki his capital. Among these are a Roman forum, the palace of Galerius, his rotunda which was eventually (and inevitably) a church and a mosque in turn, and an arch that was one bit of a colonnaded walkway between the rotunda and his palace. These aren't of any biblical interest, but they're something to see in a city that is largely gyro stands, icon stores, and next to those, well, 'erotik shops.' There's also something called the White Tower (left) which is somehow Thessaloniki's iconic symbol, but I won't bore you with that. I also managed to squeeze in a couple minutes each in the Museum of Byzantine Culture and the Archaeological Museum, which closed inexplicably (like everything in this silly country) at 3pm. Ah, well, that was Thessaloniki.

But forget that city. I woke up the next morning and caught a taxi to the bus station for a 6:15am departure for Ouranopolis. From here, all pilgrims (and monks) to the Athos peninsula have to catch a ferry that takes them along the coast to the autonomous monastic enclave farther down the coast. I'm lucky (or loved), because I fell asleep on the bus and woke up just in time to get off at the Ouranopolis gas station, just around the corner from the Pilgrim's Bureau. Here I picked up my diamonitirion, the permit that allowed me to entry Athos and stay at the monasteries. From there, pilgrims catch a ferry that runs down the southwestern coast of the peninsula to the port of Daphni, an illustrious seaside cluster of three shops and a meatless restaurant.

Well, I caught the 9:45am ferry and spend the next two hours watching the coast go by. About an hour in I started seeing minor settlements come into view. Before the monasteries were a number of sketes, which are monastic-like complexes where the monks have considerably more quiet- and solitary-time. They're more like the earliest monks of the desert, like St. Paul of Thebes and St. Anthony. There were also a few isolated cabins where monks from the monasteries go on retreats in order to be away from the clamour of the monasteries. All this was explained to me by a helpful fellow from Greece, pointing out things along the way.

Along the I got to see the monasteries of Dochariou, Xenophontos, and the Russian monastery of Padeleimonos, before docking at Daphni. From there I transferred onto another boat that runs farther along the south-western coast to my first night's stay: Simonopetras.

Simonopetras is, without a doubt, the most-photographed monastery of the holy mountain, and you can see why. It hangs on the side of a cliff near the top of a mountain ridge. From the dock where I hopped off the ferry, it was almost an hour-long walk straight uphill to the entrance. I had no idea what to expect, other than that I had my diamonitirion in hand and would need to present it to the archontariki (hospitality receptionist, a monk) upon arrival.

Oddly enough, the first persons I saw were not monks, but Greek construction workers. Thanks to the boom of interest in monasticism and the two-decades-and-counting spiritual revival on Athos, the monasteries are all undergoing renovation from various fires, Turkish and pirate raids (way back in the day), and normal wear-and-tear. So I asked the workers where I could find the guesthouse, and they pointed me in the right direction.

Remember the scary, paranoid Orthodox monks of Mar Saba, in the Judean desert? Nothing like that.

I opened with the standard Easter-season greeting, "Christos anesti!" (Christ is risen) to which the friendly monk replied "Alithos anesti!" (Truly, he is risen!). He then asked me where I was from- in English. Apparently my accent on just two Greek words was that bad.

Well, he showed me to my room, and noted that Vespers was at 5pm (and that I was welcome to attend, though not, of course, commune), dinner would follow immediately thereafter, and that Matins would be at 5am with the Divine Liturgy following seamlessly at 7.

He also served me the standard welcome meal: Greek coffee, hard liquor, and Turkish delight. When I sipped the liquor, not having a great taste for it, he laughed at me! I've had many odd experiences in my travels, but who would except a full-bearded, black-dressed Greek Orthodox monk in Simonapetra on Mount Athos to laugh at someone for being a lightweight? Fantastic.

More to the point, though, we chatted for a bit about my vocational direction: the ministry and academia. He told me there was an American monk about, Father Maximos, who was always up for a chat. So after dinner he introduced us, and I talked with this ethnic Greek native New Yorker for about two hours. He had some great words of wisdom today about the perils and promise of doing theology and biblical studies within the academy (more peril than promise, to be honest). We sat up on the gazebo higher on the mountainside, so I had a great view of the monastery from above- something he admitted that he'd thought of for my sake when picking out a place for a chat.

A word about dinner. Dinner in the monasteries means eating with the monks, sharing their diet, and following their rules. In the first case, there's no meat. They're not vegans (except during Lent), but they abstain from meat as a 'little thing' as they strive to be entrusted with the greater things (cf. Luke 16:10). More significantly, though, they take their meals in silence while a reader chants out a passage of the Scriptures (or perhaps the Church Fathers; it's in Greek, so I never could tell). And when the bell rings and the reading begins, you've got to start stuffing yourself, because whether that reading is two or twenty minutes, the second bell means the meal is over. I didn't finish the first night; you can bet I finished each other meal.

I'm happy to say that I was the first non-monk to arrive at 5am for the Matins. The Greeks and Russians filed in over the next two and a half hours, right up till the distribution of Holy Communion. From what little Greek I've had (during my months in St. Louis at Concordia, and my own studies since then) I caught only the barest fragments of the liturgy. It didn't matter; their chant and their song is some of the most beautiful worship music I've ever heard, especially at Simonapetras. I was perfectly content to pray to God in my thoughts and silently with moving lips as I worked my way round and round the Orthodox prayer rope, the chotki, ritually repeating "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner." For three hours. It went surprisingly fast.

After being served coffee and hard bread for breakfast I took a short nap before heading out. Rather than going straight to the port in order to take the ferry to the next monastery, I walked along the mountainside for an hour or so down to the seaside monastery of Ouiso Grigoriou. I'd considering staying there back when I was faxing monasteries in November, so I thought I'd check it out. Like all the monasteries, it's architecturally impressive; but what struck me most was the flora all around the entrance and within the central courtyard.

I must have looked tired and hungry, because the monks who greeted me there (with Greek coffee, Turkish delight, and Ouzo, the Greek liquor of choice) insisted on feeding me lunch. That turned out great, not only because of the food, but because it gave me the chance to take a leisurely look at their refectory (dining hall). The fresco icons were, as elsewhere, extraordinary; but here, being a seaside monastery, they were open to raids by Muslim pirates who, according to their religious sensibilities, scratched out the faces of the figures depicted. Some wonderful restoration has been done, but the marks of ill-founded piety are still visible.

From there I caught the ferry to Dionysiou. Dionysiou Monastery is another cliff-hung monastery like Simonpetra, except right off the seashore. At Simonpetra I'd hiked up alone to the monastery, as all the other pilgrims had caught a complementary bus provided by the great monastery from Daphni; here, I got off with about thirty other pilgrims, all Greeks, Russians, and Cypriots. As a result, I got to experience the full welcome, which, of course, included the obligatory Greek coffee, Turkish delight, and Ouzo.

After a nap, I was (courteously) awakened by my roommates for Vespers, where I had an unexpected experience. Orthodox churches are not designed quite like the western model. In the first case, there is the division between the katholikon, or the area where the laity stands and worships much like the nave of western churches, and the sanctuary, the area where the altar is and where the priests do their thing. Between these is the iconostasis, a wall with doors covered in icons. However, there is often a double narthex which serves as a worship center as well, rather than as the 'lobby' it's used in western churches. The exonarthex is the vestibule, the lobby, where people simply pass through into the church and where announcements and such are posted (not, of course, in the monastic churches of Athos). The endonarthex is actually a worship area just as large as the katholikon, where worshipers stand along the walls if the wall-space (or the chairs) are taken up in the katholikon.

Why do I go into such boring (interesting!) architectural detail? Because what I didn't know was that the katholikon is only for Orthodox.

They never said anything at Simonapetras, but they sure did at Dionysiou. About twenty minutes into Vespers a scary black-bearded monk took me by the arm and asked me whether I was Orthodox. He apparently had been told by the archontiriki, who'd seen my diamonitirion and thus knew that I was 'Katholikos' (meaning Christian, but not Orthodox). I responded truthfully, and was escorted a few feet outside the katholikon to the endonarthex.

I won't pretend that I wasn't a bit hurt by it- after all, it's not like I was going to take communion- but I understand where they're coming from. The hardest thing was continuing to pray the Prayer of the Heart, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner" through the knots of the chotki, in order to ask God that he calm my heart and make me tender and graceful, rather than bitter. After an hour of this ritual, repetitive prayer, it finally worked, and God allowed the coldness to pass out of me. What would I do without this repetitive ritual, which takes so long but rewards so much?

On a far more humorous note, my roommates at Dionysiou were hilarious. They were all from Cyprus, so two of them spoke passable English. One of the older guys with them was a fat fellow who slept in the bed next to me and snored louder than anyone I've ever heard. I got in bed around 9pm, fell asleep around 11pm...

..and woke up at 1am to the noise of the other Cypriots beating the fat man with sticks!

"He's snoring too loud!"

"Do you even know him?!"

"He's our spiritual leader!"

What?!

Remind me never to be a pastor in Cyprus, because apparently it means you get beaten with sticks if you snore too loudly. I was even handed a stick and encouraged to join in the fun.

Well, I skipped most of the liturgy the next morning, and just came in for the last hour. That meant I got breakfast- Greek coffee and cold bread again- before going on my merry way.

I took the boat back to Daphni, since my final monastery, Xenophontos (right), was between Daphni and Ouranopolis. After doing a bit of shopping there (I picked up some lovely icons), I caught the boat to Xenophontos, without a reservation (I'd reserved it for two nights earlier, but was delayed by the ash cloud). Here, I got off the ferry with just two other fellows. Yet I was welcomed openly by the very friendly monks there.

I'd heard good things about Xenophontos from several people I met over Easter in Jerusalem. I fact, I was told to say 'hi' to some of the monks there; unfortunately, the monk in question was away on business for the monastery, so I don't suppose I'll ever know if the message I left will reach him.

After the obligatory Ouzo, Greek coffee, and Turkish delight (I think the purpose is to get you drunk, caffeinated and on a sugar high so that you can have a more mystical worship experience), I met up with two great Slovak guys in their early twenties. Their names were Peter and Lubosh, although I was told to call the latter Bubo for some inexplicable reason. I'd been told by that friendly Greek man on the boat from the first day that I could take my afternoon at Xenophontos to walk to Padeleimonos Monastery, and it turned out they were doing the same thing.
So we hiked to Padeleimonos(right), the great Russian monastery complex of Mount Athos. Some of the Greek monks call it Putingrad, because it's undergoing construction work (not just restoration, but new construction) thanks to the personal bankrolling of Vladimir Putin.

Oh, and a note: Greek Orthodox aren't the Amish. They use electricity, drive cars, operate machinery. Indeed, as Father Maximos lamented, the monks of Ouiso Grigariou are blasting a road with freaking dynamite up Mount Athos itself in order to have ready access to their site there. So the construction workers and Putingrad? Take no note.

Well, it was a very nice walk, and the monks at Pandeleimonos offered us... tea? The Russians just aren't terribly interested in non-Russian visitors.

In any case, my night at Xenophontos was wonderful. I was even personally invited to go into the katholikon after the service was over, even though I was non-Orthodox. I think they were just pleased that a non-Orthodox person, let alone the only American around, was so interested in their spirituality.

And the next morning I headed back to Ouranopolis, and then back to Thessaloniki for a night train to Athens.

My time on Mount Athos was naturally engaging, but what did I take away from it?

In many ways, it simply clarified my relationship to Orthodoxy. It confirmed the many reasons I'm attracted to Eastern Christianity; it equally confirmed the many reasons I'm not and can't be Orthodox.

In the first case, the spirituality is unbelievably profound. The sound of the liturgy, the feel of the chotki, the smell of incense, the veneration of icons- these engage all the senses of the worshiper in the truest spirit of the incarnation of Christ our Lord (climaxing, of course, in his incarnate presence in the Eucharist).

But aside from the theological reasons why I cannot be Orthodox- and I'll post about them later- the ecclesiastical culture of Orthodoxy is something that I feel has certain serious faults. The weakest criticism is that for a Western Christian, schooled in the shape of the liturgy as it is found in the Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican churches, the liturgy of Orthodoxy is impenetrable. It simply doesn't follow the format around which my worship has been guided for the better part of a decade. I say it's a weak criticism, because that's mostly my own personal relationship to the Orthodox liturgy; the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, their primary weakly order of worship, is very ancient and venerable. It just isn't the liturgy that has evolved in the west and matches more thoroughly our culture and traditions.

More severely, however, the role of the laity in the worship of Orthodoxy falls under the same criticism I offer against the para-liturgical worship of Protestantism. It simply doesn't engage the laity. It's performance, not participation. Granted, Orthodoxy and Protestantism fall under the faults in very different ways. Protestant worship is shaped by the culture of Western European and American understandings of courtesy; one doesn't mill about during a performance at the theater, or talk on a cell phone, but watches attentively. However, it is largely watching; in Protestantism, there isn't the sort of ritual responsorial reading, chanting of the ordinary and propers, and movement of body (and thus soul) that one finds in Catholicism, Anglicanism, and Lutheranism. The 'worship service' is to be politely and attentively observed, not actively engaged.

In Orthodoxy, the performance vs. participation dialectic weighs against it in a very different way. It's much more like the pre-Tridentine Catholic Church that Luther so vehemently criticized in his works on the receiving of the sacrament in both kinds (that is, both the bread and the wine) and the importance of congregational singing. There are responsive readings, antiphonal chants, and the like in Orthodox worship; however, the movement and engagement is between choirs of priests, not between clergy and laity. The laity just stands around, observing the participatory worship in which the priests are engaged. This, I believe, is wholly improper and a distortion of the rich liturgical heritage of Orthodoxy. I'm sure it's partly cultural and less theological, but that doesn't make it any less harmful to the spirit of the liturgy.

That isn't to highlight the negative. It was wonderful to be in a place where incense, chant, and icons could be employed without some label of 'high church' being applied, as if that were just one option at the end of an equally valid spectrum. Mount Athos itself is a testament to the deepest traditions of Christian worship in Eastern Europe, an enclave of the thirteenth century where the Hagia Sophia has fallen to the Turks and Athens has fallen to the atheists.

And so I left Athos, spiritually refreshed and ready to take on my final weeks.

Istanbul (Was Constantinople)

After the previous post, I'm sure you're wondering how exactly Istanbul turned out. I can definitely say that Istanbul, as a whole, was a lot better than the first half of the tour. There were also a couple far more embarrassing or egregious faux pas, but I'll try to mention them in passing rather than making those complaints the centerpiece of my post.

The day our three busloads of tourists left Izmir we buzzed through Laodicea and Colossae (the latter is a heap of unexcavated dirt) and flew from Denizli Airport to Ataturk International in Istanbul. We checked into our hotel at 10pm, the Kempinski of Ciragan Palace. Ciragan Palace was originally an Ottoman palace built under Sultan Abdulaziz 1863 and 1867. The sultan suite of the hotel is the second-largest suite in Europe (behind one in Rome), and costs 30,000 euros a night. My roommate and I slept in a room that was a modest 1250 euros, although I'm relieved under the certainty that our 150 travelers received a package deal. We had a bidet, but I never tried it out. We also had a pillow menu, in case the three different kinds of pillows already on the bed were insufficient.

The next morning we went to the Hagia Sophia. This, of course, was going to be a great highlight of the trip. The greatest church in Christendom, with two previous churches on the site (one erected by Constantine the Great) and the current one put up under Justinian the Great. It served as a church for nearly a thousand years until the brutal Turkish-Muslim sack of Constantinople in 1453, when it was ingloriously vandalized and turned into a mosque. But Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish republic, decreed that the Hagia Sophia should be made into a museum, and so it has been in the 1920s. Since then, restoration work has uncovered profoundly beautiful mosaics underneath the plaster that covered them during its time as a mosque, and these were indeed alone worth it all.

Dee, as I mentioned, took a whole semester course on the Hagia Sophia at Istanbul University. It showed. When the acoustics weren't quite right, she stepped a few feet in a seemingly random direction, and suddenly we could hear her perfectly. She gave us a wonderful tour lasting about an hour, and another forty-five minutes by ourselves in the church.

What did I feel at this? It's impossible to understand how I felt without going into my expectations.

The Hagia Sophia, despite its conversion into a mosque and thereafter into a museum, will forever remain in the hearts and minds of the faithful the seat of the Patriarch of Constantinople. It was another thousand years before Michelangelo's dome on St. Peter's pushed the Hagia Sophia's dome into second place; another three hundred before St. Paul's in London pushed it into third. Its engineering skill was unsurpassed. When Justinian oversaw the completion of it, he declared "Solomon, I have outdone thee"; conversely when the Turks attempted to outdo him a thousand years later with the building of the Blue Mosque, they failed to erect as grand a dome.

And oh, the many nights I've stayed up with assorted friends dreaming of a Fourth Crusade to reconvert it into a church and restore its former glory. I admit that, because it was so profoundly wrong.

The Hagia Sophia is a tomb.

Flashforward a week: I'm at Dionysiou Monastery on Mount Athos talking with a Cypriot fellow who speaks passable English. I mention that I've been to the Hagia Sophia recently. He asks me how it was. I give him the standard answer: "It was magnificent. The mosaics were extraordinary. The dome is spell-binding." He replies, sadly, "I've never been." I mention to him that it wouldn't be too hard to go. He says, "No, you don't understand. I've been to Constantinopolis (Istanbul). But I can't go there."

I would have never agreed with him beforehand, but I can't help but do so now. It's a little like the Holy Sepulchre: there are electric cords and scaffolding everywhere, and it's dimly lit throughout. The architects originally designed the church to work playfully with the light, in tandem with the candles and oil lamps lit during the liturgy and the reflection of shimmering mosaics; today, the light, however brilliant at times, hits flat. But it's also unlike the Holy Sepulchre: there is no tomb there to venerate, no worship commemorating the mighty deeds of our God, no monks in quiet corners folding themselves inside themselves away from the tourists, inviting you to join their. It's a museum; it's a tomb.

By all means, go. It's a magnificent museum, and perhaps you can, like me, conjure up a little feeling of times past by hearing a distant echo of the chants. But I came out wondering whether it was truly right to envision a reconversion of the church. On the galleries, the mezzanine floor where the ladies worshiped, there is a display of large boards showing the various icon mosaics uncovered and restored throughout the church. The entrance plaque reads: Hagia Sophia, A Vision for Empires. It's an accurate enough description of this church; but is that the proper role of any church? Perhaps as a museum it can be a testament to that unholy marriage between state and church; perhaps as a tomb, we can venerate it as the place where such a vision is put to rest.

But more on Caesar later...

That afternoon we were taken to an overly opulent carpet store called Matis. It's reputed to be one of world's leading exporters in Turkish carpets (whether from Turkey or the Turkic peoples of Central Asia, with whom they contract), and the store in Istanbul is their outlet. The talk on carpets was actually very interesting, and now I know the difference between wool, cotton-wool, mercerized cotton, and silk carpets. But then everybody headed out for four hours of shopping at the Grand Bazaar, and I just left and went back to hotel (after a brief stop in the train station).

That evening we had a particularly amazing dinner together in a Roman cistern, with live music and the best beef I've ever had outside the United States. It was a great time.

The second day we went back to Sultanamet (the central Old City district) to begin our morning with a visit to the Blue Mosque. To my absolute horror, the pastor in question began to give a public talk outside the entrance to the mosque on Islam. Now, before I'm mentally judged and berated for not being ready to face public scorn for Christ... well, once again, "by no means!" If it were the case that the massive group, or volunteers within it, were prepared to stand outside the mosque and witness for Christ, and risk time in a Turkish prison for religious provokation and proselytizing in the secular public square, or a riot of angry pious Muslims, that would be one thing. To proclaim the good news that Jesus Christ is the risen Lord and Savior, and that Allah is neither lord, nor savior, nor risen, that would be just the sort of thing that Christians ought to be doing, and we should all be so prepared to take those risks in order to announce that there is a very different sort of kingdom on the rise.

But that's not what this was. The speaker didn't address the Muslims at all. Rather, he gave an 'educational' talk about Islam to the gathered tour group, right outside the mosque, which included a good number of gross mischaracterizations of Islam. Islam is many things, and often many awful things, but his talk didn't go into dhimmitude, or jahaliyyah, or takfir, or any of the profane doctrines preached by Muslims radicals and derived from the Islamic mainstream. Rather, he just ridiculed the religion as stupid, talking about how all Muslims will get 72 virgins when they die (untrue) or how Muslims believe that all non-believers are to be killed (also untrue).

But forget that the facts were wrong; more importantly, it served no other purpose than to provoke. This was not a witness to Christ. It was just spitting in people's faces. Naturally, let's not forget, that this was all said in English; therefore, the only Turks who could understand it were those who have some education in English, most of all our wonderful Turkish Muslim tour guides!

Well, moving on.

The Blue Mosque itself (above) was amazing. Somehow, even though it was smaller than the Hagia Sophia, the smaller space brought it down to a human scale in which one could somehow better imagine it as a functional building rather than a monument (or a museum). It didn't hurt, of course, that the Muslims were just getting ready for their noontime prayer, with many people milling around and finding their place on the carpet. It was also a pleasure to finally see a mosque that didn't have that ramshackle feel to it, like so many have.

After the Blue Mosque we headed to Topkapi Palace, the grand estate of Suleiman the Great. If you don't know who Suleiman the Great is, he was the most powerful monarch of early modernity. To put things in perspective: his British contemporaries, the Stuarts, ended up dethroned... or decapitated. He presided over the Ottoman Empire when it stretched three continents, from Vienna in Europe through the North Africa deserts, across the entire Middle East to the borders of the Savafad dynasty in Persia.

And yet, the Osman dynasty (the ruling dynasty of the Ottoman Empire) retained certain features of their nomadic, tribal past. A good example: the sultan's divan, where he met with advisors and ministers, is miniscule in scale compared to any similar room in Versailles or Buckingham. Indeed, its dome is only the size of the tribal chieftan's yurt, an animal-hide tent the Turks traveled in from their origins in Central Asia to their settlement in Anatolia. The contrast between their power and their architecture was most striking.

Not to say the Osmanlis were humble. During the extensive free time we had at Topkapi, I forked out the extra couple bucks and went into the extensive rooms of the imperial harem. Here the concubines of the sultan were kept, serving both as objects for the sultan's pleasure as well as tutors for his children, workers in the palace, and other functionaries. They, in turn, were served by eunuchs also housed in the complex. The harem (that is, the building complex, not the concubines) contained not just rooms for, well, harem-stuff, but also galleries of the arts and chambers for schoolrooms. Pictured left is the Courtyard of the Favorites. It was certainly well worth the extra 10 lira or so.

We ended the day with a visit to the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. This museum contains some of the most precious treasures from the Ancient Near East, as many of them were excavated or discovered during the period when the Ottoman Empire controlled Palestine and Mesopotamia. I'll just list them here:

The Gezer Calendar, the oldest example of Hebrew:
The Siloam Inscription, an inscription detailing the meeting of the laborers working from both ends to dig out Hezekiah's tunnel:
The Thanatos Stone, a Herodian-era warning telling Gentiles to keep out of the Jerusalem temple courts on pain of death:
The sarcophagus of King Abdalonymos of Sidon, with one of the earliest images of Alexander the Great in existance:

Unfortunately, my camera ran out of batteries, and I was unable get a picture of the Treaty of Kadesh, which established peace between Ramasses II and the Hittite King Muwatalli II, or the animal reliefs from the Ishtar Gate. Even so, the number of biblical-era finds in this place is unparallleled. I knew it was good, but I had no idea how much was packed in. After another long talk from pastor in question, we only got about forty-five scheduled minutes in the museum, so I said 'forget that,' and told them I was goign to skip dinner and would see them back at the hotel around 8. So I spent another two hours in the museum, and got to go through the extensive Greco-Roman sculpture section. Rick Steves- the excellent travel guide writer of the series Europe Through the Back Door, which I'm using in lieu of Lonely Planet from here on out- even had a detailed self-guided tour through the museum.

Well, it wouldn't be a long-term travel experience without something making everything go wrong, and I bet most of you can guess what came next:

That unpronouncable volcano in Iceland erupted.

Shouldn't be a problem for me, right? After all, my only plan was to take a night train from Istanbul to Thessaloniki after another full day in Istanbul. I'm not flying until May 10th, when I head home from Rome.

Well, the group had its plane canceled, so while they were stuck in Istanbul with no schedule for the morning except wait for news, I headed to the Sirceki Train Station (the terminus of the Orient Express, by the way) to reserve my ticket on the train. After waiting in an hour long line, and despite being one of the first in the door, I was told that there was no space on the train until the following night. The closing of air space had pushed several million stranded travelers onto trains. So, I had another day in Istanbul.

I ended up staying at a lower-cost hotel (lower-cost being all relative compared to the Kempinski) with my roommate and another tour member that night. But that afternoon, I devoted my attentions to getting to one of Istanbul's greatest attractions: the Chora Church.

If the Hagia Sophia is St. Peter's Basilica, Chora is the Sistine Chapel. It's a small church on the northwestern end of the Old City that was converted into a mosque after the Turkish invasion; however, its mosaic and fresco icons are magnificently preserved, and give the viewer a little glimpse of the glory that was the Hagia Sophia. If I no longer feel the strong urge to tear down the minarets and reconvert Hagia Sophia back into a church, all that fervor is now focused on this delightful little chapel.

As for history, the Chora Church was originally built as Holy Savior Outside the Walls during the Justinian era; its current form was brought about by the Byzantine prime minister Theodore Metochites in 1312 after extensive damage during the Fourth Crusaders (thanks a lot, the West).

I made my way there with the girls stranded in Istanbul, and man, even with my high expectations (and their moderate interest), we were all surprised.

Here's a rundown of its best frescoes and mosaics:

The Last Judgment:
The Anastasis (Resurrection):
The Deesis (Supplication):
The Dormition of Mary:

Well, they ended up having to stay in Istanbul two extra nights (they flew home the morning I arrived in Thessaloniki) so we had yet another free day in Istanbul. As I said, things turned out pretty well. While everyone else went on a Bosporus cruise offered by the tour operator (in order to give people at least something to do), we decided to follow the Rick Steves' guide on walks through the Sultanamet district, the historic sightseeing core of Istanbul, and the back streets of the Old City. That pretty much took up the whole day, and included the Spice Market, the Grand Bazaar, the Turkish and Islamic Museum of Arts and Culture, the hippodrome and its numerous towering monuments, and the graveyard of the Suleimaniye Mosque, where Suleiman the Magnificent is buried. It turned out to be a wonderful and relaxing way to spend a fourth day in the city. However much I wanted to get back to the Hagia Sophia to spend more time in there, and to the Archaeological Museum to get pictures of the Treaty of Kadesh and the Ishtar Gate reliefs, I think my time was better spent with my new friends wandering the old city.

That evening, I said goodbye to the wretched tour, the wonderful friends, and the exotic city of Istanbul, and hopped the 8:30pm night train to Thessaloniki. It was off to Mount Athos, to get my pilgrimage back on track.