Greece Trip: Day 7

Day 7: 16-March 2011

Squid appetizer for lunch

Today we traveled east of Thessaloniki to Philip and the port city of Kavala. Kavala used to be called Neaopoli, however that simply means “new city” which many colonies and new cities were called. This is the port where the apostle Paul landed in Greece. Near Kavala is Mt. Athos, it is a holy place to Greek Orthodox monks. There used to be 35000 monks there but are now only about 2500. We did not visit the place because it is not a tourist place, though you can request special permission to spend a few nights in the monastery. They still live the way of the Byzantine period and have many treasures such as gold and precious stone covered Bibles. We ate lunch in Kavala right on the harbor in an open air cafe looking out over the harbor. It was a rather beautiful place and picturesque eating the fish and looking out over the harbor with mountains surrounding us and cats walking around our feet. We had fried calamari, which was neat because they were small whole squid. We also ate a type of codfish from the Mediterranean which is quite large and had slices simply cut out of it. Quite tasty.

River that Lydia was baptized in

A Basilica at Philipi

Fish on a capital at a Basilica in Philipi

Near Kavala is Philipi. Near here is the river where Lydia, the first Christian convert in Europe, was baptized. Philipi is where Paul and Silas traveled through on Paul's second missionary journey. It was originally founded by King Philip II. It was first excavated by Napoleon the 3rd because he identified with King Philip. It is currently being excavated and much of the town has been found including the agora, theater, and three basilicas. One of the basilicas was very interesting in that the capitals on some of the columns had fishes decorating them, the early christian symbol and password. Since Philipi was where Paul and Silas were imprisoned we had a presentation on 1st century prisons. They were a place meant to hold people while waiting for trial and judgement rather than a place of punishment like prisons today. Prisoners were not taken care of then like they are today. In fact they weren't fed or anything, friends were needed to bring food and provisions, etc. Many people died in prison because they were usually beaten first (like Paul and Silas were) and then thrown in there without medical treatment or food. Though, if you were well off enough and a known figure you could have house arrest. Because of the lack of care in prisons this is a big reason why Paul tells in his letters (like Heb 13:3) to visit those in prison. This was also a big deal because it caused them to be associated with those in prison and identified them as Christians, or at least sympathetic to them.

Ignation Road in Philipi

The ancient Ignation road ran through Philipi. The ignation road was an ancient Roman road that Paul traveled on and went through Greece. A portion of the road is still preserved in Philipi today, even the grooves worn in the stone from many years of wagon and chariot traffic. The current day ignation road runs along a similar route, it goes from the port of Igoumenitsa on the eastern coast all the way to the Turkish border. It is interesting to see how geography affects things and doesn't really change over the years. 2000 years ago this route was advantageous for a road, it led from places that were good to live and grow food to other such places and to places of commerce such as the port at Kavala and this was the most efficient route to go then and still is today. The effect of geography is everywhere in the world, whether it is the mountains and valleys in Greece caugin the formation of many independent city-states or the navigable rivers of the central US going through fertile farm land allowing for great prosperity or the lack of navigable rivers in Mexico or Russia preventing easy exploitation of vast natural resources among many different things. It sets up perpetual conflicts and tensions and alliances and really much of geopolitical structures. Once I understand these things as I have begun to over the last few years geography is now far more interesting than it was in high school.

Prison ruins from Philipi

A Theater in Philipi

We had a presentation on monasticism today as well. The idea behind it is in the Gospels and epistles such as 1 John 3:15 where it talks about not loving the world. There are two main categories of monasticism, hermetic and synobiotic (communal). The hermetic was started by St. Anthony of the desert. After he was converted he heard the verses of the rich young ruler being called to sell his riches as being directed at him, so he sold his possessions and went to the desert. He spent 15 years battling demons and desires within himself but he thought he needed even more solitude so around 285AD he moved a mountain and didn't talk to anyone for 15 years. Some people came to join him as they saw that lifestyle attractive. As it got crowded he moved on. As this lifestyle developed it could range from reasonably comfortable living to very harsh living with some monks eating once a weak and living on the edge of starvation in an attempt to be more holy and closer to God. The second type called synbiotic is basically a communal style. It comes from St. Pachomius in the desert of Egypt. He started living as a hermit but had a desire to bring others together and pursue spirituality together. He founded the first monastic compound in 318AD but it didn't work out very well as he was very strict. So he moved on and founded others that worked better, he ended up founding 9 monasteries and 2 nunneries. They were characterized by prayer, work and rest. To get in you had to prove your desire. You would often have to stand outside the gate for several days until the gatekeeper decided to let you in. Then you would be trained in the ways and Christianity and then given a place to live and a job to do. The monasteries were pretty much self sufficient. In the byzantine period there was a boom in interest in monasticism.
While in Kavala we had a presentation on seafaring in the ancient world. Seafaring was important in the mediterranean and particularly Greece because of the mountainous terrain making land travel difficult and slow so there were many port cities such as Kavala or Corinth or Athens, etc. There were two main types of ships, warships and merchant ships. The first warships had only a single row of oars and were rather slow. They grew to the famous trireme which had 3 rows and oars and could go 14-15 knots at battle speed. The ships would attack by ramming the enemy ships and sinking them. They did eventually develop ships with four rows of oars and two men per oar. Merchant ships were very common and needed for trade and they used sails and the wind for their propulsion. This is how Paul traveled on his fourth missionary journey. He sailed from Asia Minor around the southern edge of the Greek islands and Crete until the storm hit and they wrecked on Malta south of Sicily. Throughout ancient history of the mediterranean seafaring was incredibly important and affected the development of nations and the culture greatly, again, as mentioned earlier, this development of seafaring shows the importance of geography because it came out of the geography of where these people lived and created a necessity and advantage for this type of travel.