Greece Trip: Day 5

Another note, sorry if these are a little rough, I'm simply typing them up each night and posting them without much proofreading.

A Monastery

Day 5: March 14, 2011

Today we were in Kalambaka, in central Greece. We were here to see Meteora (means suspended), the suspended monasteries. These are monasteries started around the 10^th century AD. They are built on top of rock spires sticking up out of the plains, some of them several hundred meters tall. Up until 1922 pilgrims and monks were raised and lowered in baskets, taking as much as 30 minutes one way. Then stairs were built into the rocks to assist in getting up and down. If the clouds are right they can appear suspended in the air, hence their name. There were 24 at one time, now there are 6 monasteries and 4 nunneries. The monks in the eastern world, the Eastern Orthodox Church, became monks to live a separate life devoted to God rather than like many monks of the Roman Catholic tradition that ran hospitals, orphanages, etc. They would spend 1/3 each of their time in praying, work, and rest. It was the Greek church that helped preserve the Greek language and culture throughout the Turkish occupation. You couldn't be a muslim and a Greek culturally. The churches were places where the greek language was spoken and taught and used.

Remains of a former monastery on a spire

Another Monastery

The supply lift at Varlaam where we visited

We visited the Monastery Varlaam. It was built in the 14^th century AD and then abandoned and rebuilt in the 16^th century which is when much of what is left today is from. Standing up in the monastery was a beautiful view looking out over other rock spires and a plain and large snow clad mountains behind them. This monastery has 14-16 monks living there and it has a museum and facilitates tours for part of the day. Sadly we didn't get to go up in the basket but hiked up a path and over a bridge, though they still use the lift (motorized now) for hauling supplies up. In fact, they will occasionally lower and raise a monk by hand, for old times sake. This monastery is particularly famous for its wall paintings. They have survived in their original form very well and better than most. We were able to see them (though no pictures were allowed) and they were quite beautiful and in amazing shape for being 500 years old. It was neat to see all the icons painted and hear about the meaning behind them and the different aspects of the painting. They obviously are not made to look real, but different aspects all have meaning pertaining to the person they represent or the beliefs about them. Icons from that time were painted by professionals who traveled around doing it, but they didn't sign them back then because it was for their religion, not fame. The church also had a holy section that only the priest could go into. This came somewhat from the tradition at the temple in Jerusalem of the Holy of Holies.

A Nunnery

The Greek orthodox (much from a presentation) are one direction Christianity went from the early days. When the Roman empire split the western half developed the Roman Catholic church while the eastern half based in Constantinople developed the eastern/Greek orthodox church. While there are some theological differences between the two, a big difference that cause division was that the catholic church recognized the infallibility of the Pope, while the greek orthodox church didn't, they resolved issues of belief through ecumenical counsels.

After this we traveled up to Thessaloniki in northern Greece, the second largest city in Greece at about 1 million people. The name means victory (Nike) in Thessoloy (the area) and was named after King Phillip won a great victory in this area. It has been continuously inhabited since it was founded in 316BC. We briefly stopped at the Byzantine Museum and saw some artifacts from the byzantine era. In particular we focused on early Christian tombs that have been found. It was interesting it wasn't until the 4^th century that crosses were used in connection with tombs.

View from on top the monastery

A 12000L wine barrel from the 16th Century

Old lift to bring up supplies

Another view from Varlaam Monastery

Cross from 4th Century Tomb

We then went to a Byzantine basilica, the basilica of Ayios Demetrius. The most important basilica in Thessaloniki. There are no basilicas before the 4^th century AD since Christianity was illegal before then. This basilica is from the 5^th century, so certainly on the older side. Demetrius was a Roman military official who was arrested at a Christian meeting. While detained he blessed another Christian who was to fight a much larger man in a gladiator fight, and he won. This angered the Romans who speared Demetrius to death. His remains are in the basilica built with his name. This basilica has 4 side aisles, and something I didn't know is there are always 3 entrances going into the main church from the Narthex to represent the trinity. This church was made a mosque after 1430AD when the Turks took over. After northern Greece was freed in 1912 it was restored back as a basilica though parts of it were destroyed in a massive city fire in Thessaloniki in 1917. Also in Thessaloniki we briefly saw the remains of the old agora and adium. The adium was like a theater, but was not built on a hill. A city wasn't fit to be called a city unless it had a theater or an adium and the culture that came along with it.

Basilica of St. Demetrius in Thessaloniki

Inside the Basilica of St. Demetrius

Our last bit of the day was a presentation on travel in the ancient world in preparation for seeing roads and places of Paul's travels. Travel has always been important and for much of history has been simply down by foot, that's what one is born with. Prior to classical greece it was all foot travel with only a little on mount animals such as mules or donkeys, or a horse if you were nobility. There were very few roads and the ones that existed were pretty rough and were usually more or less a foot path. Later the paths improved a bit for carrying carts, but they were just two grooves in the dirt or stone for the wheels and there were turnoffs every so often if carts needed to pass each other. The early carts had solid wheels and were quite heavy and pulled by oxen with wooden yokes since they didn't have harnesses and such for donkeys and similar animals. Once the Romans came though, the roads improved greatly, that is one thing they were known for. They even had distance markers every (5000 ft, a Roman mile) and maps have even been found with distances marked on them and services available at cities and stops. Most people could cover about 30-40km a day on foot (though it is said that Alexander the Greats troops could cover 100km in 24 hours providing a great military advantage) Paul did much of his missionary traveling by land which was rather grueling. Though he did travel by sea some which was the most efficient way for long travel and commerce. Traveling on the Roman roads and having to stop in different towns was one way the early church communicated. They would stay with other Christians and this allowed them to pass information and keep up on how different churches in different areas were doing. A lot of Paul's charges about being hospitable really make sense in this context. It is an interesting exercise to read the beginning and end of all of Paul's letters and look at the names and see how many are the same from people moving around and keeping in contact with each other.

That was pretty much all for today, though as I write this I smell cigarette smoke coming through the window and am reminded how popular smoking is here in Greece. It is far more popular than in the US, there is less stigma with it. Though it seems many buildings still don't allow smoking inside, though some do, including this hotel. However, this works well with the Greek desire to be outside a lot, all the cafes all have extensive outside seating and many have propane heaters as well so people can be outside for more of the year.