On my original post from Turkey I showed you how I was a great distraction to my fellow pilgrims in Laodicea. While our guide Mehmet was explaining the significance of the archeological site, I was climbing on top of this ruin to get a better vantage point to shoot the spring flowers.

Well here’s the picture I was taking from my Laodician perch. I had to get up high enough to get a green backdrop for the lovely red and yellow wild flowers. BTW that’s not snow in the background, but the calcium deposits of Hieropolis which would be our next stop.

Sister Heloise read the apocalytic letter to Laodicea [Rev 3, 14-22], but here we also have a Pauline connection. “For I would have you know,” Paul writes the Colossians, “what manner of care I have for you and for them that are at Laodicea.” [Col 2,1] Paul had never been to either Colossae or its neighboring city Laodicea. He begins his letter aware that these Christians only know him by reputation.

Paul assures them that he knows them by their reputation too: “For we have heard of your faith in Jesus Christ and of the love that you have for all the saints.” [Col 1,4] The founder of the Colossian congregation is a guy I call “Pap.” Epaphras was with Paul when he wrote this letter.

Antonio Lara and I stand on what’s left of Main Street in Laodicea. Some bikers had set up what our tour guide called “a shepherd’s tent” in back of us at entrance to the site. You can also see our tour bus in back of me.

Laodicea was a city of fashion as reflected in Saint John’s letter to the city: “You keep saying I am so rich and secure that I want for nothing; you fail to see how wretched you are, how pitiable and poor, how blind and naked. Take my advice. If you would be truly rich, buy from me white garments to cover the shame of your nakedness.” [Rev 3,17]

From Laodecia, we could see the white calcium deposits of Hierapolis in the distance. As Paul ends his letter to the Colossians, he reminds them that he writes to them “in chains” together with their beloved Epaphras “who is one of you… and is always at prayer on your behalf. I testify that he has worked hard for you, and for those in Laodicea and Hieropolis.” [Col 4, 12-13]

The biblical site of Hierapolis known to Saints Paul and John is today known as Pamukkale which means Cotton Castle. The tourist guides translated Hierapolis to mean Holy City, but I think a better translation would be the royal city, or the city where the hierarchy could be found. Founded by a king of Pergamon, the city became subject to Rome in the year 133 BC.


These waters, rich in calcium oxide, flow down the southern slope of Caldag.
The thermal waters are reputed to have healing powers and are supposed to be good for people with Glaucoma.

Well naturally, we had to wade in to test the reputation of these waters. I am here wearing a shirt bought in Ephesus with Maria Mendola from Houston and Susan Acut from Corpus Christi. Our feet have been free of Glacoma ever since! That evening German tourists were running around the hotel lobby in their bath robes. Reminded me of Hot Springs in Arkansas or Warm Springs GA in their hey day.

Philadelphia

Here’s what Philadelphia looks like today. The modern city is built on top of the old ruins. So there’s not much to see of this ancient city built by Eumenes II for his brother Attolas II in 2nd century B.C.


The Princeton archeology school excavated one city block surrounding a 6th century church built by Justinian. What you see here is the base of one of the grand arches of this church dedicated to Saint John the Evangelist. That’s Suzanne Treis standing at the entrance. Suzanne took almost all of the pictures I posted in April while in Turkey.

Underneath the church are the bare ruins of the ancient city. This would have been the Philadelphia of Saint John’s time when he wrote his apocalyptic letter to the church in Philadelphia: “And to the angel of the church of Philadelphia write, write this: I know thy works. Behold I have given before thee a door opened… because thou hast kept my word… And they shall know that I have loved thee, because thou hast kept the word of my patience. I will also keep thee from the hour of temptation.” [Rev 3, 7-10]



The funeral stones from Philadelphia are filled with life with a filigree of eggs surrounded by a spring growth of fresh leaves and branches, sprouts and flowers.


In other ornamental funeral stones we find Christian symbols of grape vines and thurible with incense rising to bless the tombs of the deceased Christians of Philadelphia who were praised by St. John for their piety and for their love.

Sardis was the capital of ancient Lydia and one of the largest cities in western Asia Minor from the first half of the last millennium B.C. to the end of the first Christian millennium. The position of Sardis near the river Pactolus, with Mount Tmolus to the north, made it a strategically and commercially important city.

The ancient temple was dedicated to Artemis c. 300 B.C. In the 4th century a Christian church was built on one corner of the temple ruins. Acts 3, 1-6 rebukes Sardis for its lack of virtue; although a few of its members “have not defiled their garments.” The church of Sardis grew. As late as the 10th century it was a metropolitan see with 27 suffragan bishops.

The river Pactolus was famous for the gold it carried. Archeologists from Harvard found a metal factory that separated gold and silver. This was the first city to mint coins. The oldest occupation levels excavated at Sardis date from the Late Bronze Age, ca. 1400 BC, but much older artifacts, going back to the Early Bronze Age and Neolithic Period in the 3rd-7th millennia BC have been recovered at the site.

Sardis remained a flourishing center of commerce both in the
Hellenistic and in Byzantine times even after Lydia was deprived of independence when conquered by Cyrus, king of Persia. There seems to have been a Jewish colony in Sardis in the 5th century B.C.

Here Susan, Cathy & Cora pose by a window of the 4th century church. In the 20th verse of the prophetic book of Obadiah we read that “the Jerusalemite exile community of Sepharad shall possess the towns of the Negeb.” Sepharad was identified in the Targum as Spain, but is more likely, the rabbis agree, to be Sardis of Asia Minor.

Hope Lara walks down the Roman road that ran through Sardis. Behind her are the shops that lined the highway. In Roman times, (1st century BC to 4th century AD) Sardis was a Graeco- Roman metropolis with the usual civic amenities such as public baths and stadium. Its final phase as a great city was in late Roman times, 4th-7th centuries AD, and many prominent ruins of the site date from that era. Thereafter the settlement gradually diminished in size and population.

In 1306 Sardis was taken by the Seljuks, and in 1402 was devastated. David Garcia stands in what is left today of ancient Sardis. Excavations here were carried out by American archeologists from 1910 to 1914, and since 1958.

On the two and a half hour drive from Sardis to Izmir we stopped at a roadside rest area where we found this old wooden wagon wheel. It seemed to me a symbol of olden times, and even reminded me of the old ox driven carts Saint Teresa road about in in the 16th century. It must have been looking at a broken one of these that she uttered her legendary, “Lord if this is the way you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few.”

When we drove into Izmir around 3 O’Clock in the afternoon, I leaned over our buis driver’s shoulder to take this picture of a taxi. The Turkish alphabet has no X so they substitute a ks for that sound. Obviously no Exxon stations either in Turkey. Lots of Shells however. Words beginning in an h are also different. A hotel, for instance is a 'OTEL, for the h is a mere aspiration rather than a separate letter. This is the Izmir hotel where we spent the night.

Smyrna was an ancient port city founded in the 12th century B.C. The temple of Athena which stood on the north side of the gulf was one of the oldest stone buildings of Ionia. The legend is that Tantolos, son of Zeus and Pluto, founded the city on Sipylos mountain. Tantolos shared his divine knowledge with the humans, for which the gods punished him. Mount Siplyos was turned upside down by an earthquake and the city Tantolos founded ended up under water. Earthquakes have plagued the city ever since, as well as man-made disasters.

Smyrna was destroyed by the king of Lydia c. 566 B.C. Alexander the Great, after hunting on the slopes of Mt. Pagos fell asleep in the shadow of a plane tree. The double Nemesis, tutelary divinity of Symrna, appeared to him and instructed him to refound the city. This story is found on an old coin of Symrna. A temple of Nemesis was later built on the spot where Alexander had his dream. After Alexander’s death the port city was reconstructed by Antigonus who died in 281 BC.

Under the Romans the city served as capital of Asia Minor and in the 2nd century BC was a center of Hellenistic intellectual life. Christianity was brought to Smyrna in the 2nd half of the 1st century AD. Although the bible associates this city with the apostle John rather than with Paul, Smyrna in their day was a rival to its sister port city to the south where Paul lived for many years. A rival of Ephesus, Smyrna was considered the most beautiful city of Ionia. The city that developed around biblical Smyrna is known today as Izmir.

The apostle John addresses one of his seven Apocalyptic letters [Rv 2, 8-11] to Smyrna. The first known bishop was Polycarp who died a martyr there c. 155. Our plan was to celebrate Mass at St. Polycarp church, but when our tour bus arrived, the whole Christian compound at Polycarp was tightly shut, and the gatekeeper unreachable. The street the gate opened into was so narrow our bus blocked all traffic, so we decided to take an unscheduled tour of Izmir.

It was a beautiful spring afternoon. The locals gathered at safewalk cafes on the wharf. Architecture in modern day Turkey is quite functional. Aside from an artistic gem to be found here and there you basically have solid thick walls designed to withstand earthquakes. In the midst of rather drab living spaces one may find a mini-mosque with a minaret that looks like it came out of Cinderella’s castle at Disneyland.

But as it’s a port city, water becomes a predominant theme. The modern day city gives few indications of its glorious past as a vibrant center of Christianity. During his stay in Smyrna c. 110, Ignatius of Antioch wrote his famous letters to the churches of Ephesus, Magnesia & Tralles.

After his departure Ignatius wrote a letter to Smyrna & another to Polycarp. After a 15 minute tour of Izmir, our tour bus finally made our way back to St. Polycarp. As I entered this fortified compound I had the distinct feeling of what it was like to belong to an underground religion in a country hostile to Christianity.

Polycarp felt it under the Romans, we pilgrims felt it under the Moslems. From Smyrna missionaries, such as Irenaeus [120-202] were sent to Gaul. The city was captured by the Turks in 1084. It was taken back by the Byzantines 13 years later, but soon recaptured by the Ottoman Turks.

One of the biggest earthquakes to hit ancient Smyrna happened in A.D. 178. The entire city fell down and the part that survived the earthquake was destroyed by fire. Letters were written by a Smyrnaian Sofist to the emperor Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus. Moved by these letters, the emperor asked the Roman senate to provide funds to rebuild Smyrna. The city was reconstructed with these contributions. In the rebuilt port there was the addition of some shops in the north, and the Agora assumed a commercial function.

The well-preserved bust of the Emperor’s wife Faustina on the second one of the arches of the western stoa serves as evidence for this fact. It is known that Agora was used until the Byzantine period.


My final pictures from Smyrna are from a sarcophagus. Fascinated by the oval shaped objects in the artistic trim of this old coffin, I was told that they were eggs, signifying rebirth into eternal life.

Pergamon was a large city of approximately 100,000 in apostolic times. It’s about 70 miles NW of Izmir which was called Smyrna back then. Following John’s apocalyptic letter to Smyrna, comes his letter to Pergamon. “And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: These are the words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword: I know where you are living, where satan’s throne is.”

Satan’s throne is probably a reference to the Roman temple to Caesar, located on the highest level of the city. On our guide Mehmet’s map the highest level is on the upper left, with descending levels towards the lower right. Mehmet’s finger is pointing to the theater, a very steep series of steps on the side of the mountain.

Sister Heloise read John’s letter to us in each of the apocalyptic towns we visited:
“Yet you are holding fast to my name, and you did not deny your faith in me even in the days of Antipas my witness, my faithful one, who was killed among you, where satan lives.”

This is what’s left of the Trajaneum, the Roman temple started under the Emperor Trajan, which served as place of worship for the old god Zeus as well as to the emperor himself. A Christian martyr like Antipas would have seen this as “the place where satan lives.”

“But I have a few things against you: ... Repent then. If not, I will come to you soon and make war against them with the sword of my mouth. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the spirit is saying to the churches. To everyone who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give a white stone, and on the white stone is written a new name that no one knows except the one who receives it.” [Acts 2, 12-17]

From the archeological site, we descended the mountain and toured a carpet factory in Pergamum. Hand woven Persian carpets are quite expensive due to the time consuming work of placing and cutting each knot of colored fabric. All the ladies who worked there seemed quite content as they attended to their ever patient task of figuring out what color yarn goes in which slot.

From Pergamon we hit the road again for a three hour drive to the final apocalyptic church site at Akhisar. The present day city of Akhisar is built over the ruins of the biblical city of Thyatira. Archeologists in 1974-75 were given one city block to unearth what they could find of this biblical center of industry and commerce. What they found was a Roman road flanked by a hundred pillars with Ionian and Korinth style heads.


The largest ruin on this site is of a 2nd to 6th century basilica, whose wall can be seen to my right as I examine some decorative stones which in my imagination could fit well as flower pots at the monastery of Marylake. In the background you can see houses in the city of Akhisar that surrounds this historic block of old Thyatira.

From Thyatira we got back on our bus and headed to the busy city of Bursa to spend the night.