Apocalyptic Churches

Our tour of Turkey takes us through the seven churches of the Apocalypse, beginning in Ephesus, a city sacred to both St Paul & John the Evangelist. Our first picture of the day is from Leodecia where I distracted our group by mounting the tallest ruin in the area where our tour guide had stopped to take a picture. When I get home I’ll post the picture I was taking. As it is spring in Asia Minor, the poppies and wild flowers are a glorious adornment to the ruins of Leodecia, but they need a proper perspective in order to show their full glory to my camera. To achieve this perspective, I hopped to the top of this ruin, losing my balance in the process on the first try. Luckily I ended up on my fat bottom, so no harm was done. You see my second and successful attempt to mount the obstacle and take the picture. I’m sure few of our pilgrims remembered the valuable information our tour guide, Mehmet was giving due to the drama taking place behind his back.

The next apocalyptic church we visited was Philadelphia. There are few ruins in Philadelphia due to the fact that it is today still a thriving town, unlike Ephesus and Leodecia. But in the middle of busy streets, one block contains this partial arch from a Christian church to the left of which our tour guide Margarita Dufilho and I stand. Notice the minoret in back of us: a common sign of this 90% Moslem country. Archeologists excavated a couple of places around this church to reveal the ruins of the ancient city upon which this church had been built.

Next stop was Sardis, a city close to home as Marylake borders Sardis Road. This tiny hamlet in central Arkansas was named after this biblical city. We took our pictures amid the columns of the old temple which formed the center of this ancient city. A Christian church was build adjacent to the temple.

Next was Smyrna, where we stopped at St Polycarp church to celebrate Mass. Getting into an active Christian complex in a Moslem country was a complicated procedure. The Sister in charge of the locked gate had called ahead to change the time we had planned to arrive. When we finally arrived at the church, we were 15 minutes early, but the gate was still locked tight, and we had to drive around the town until we negotiated with the lady who held the keys. We were not able to remain there at the church because our bus blocked the narrow street. We did get the feeling when we finally got in, of saying an underground Mass in a definitely non-Christian land, a feeling that St. Paul and St Polycarp would have known well.

A great restoration project is underway in the ancient part of Smyrna. Houses are being purchased one by one in the old quarter of the city, and stripped of their modern additions to reveal the old ruins which lie beneath. In this picture, you see the presently occupied homes to the left behind the old historic structures. To the right is a more contemporary wall which will be stripped away to reveal what’s underneath once that structure can be bought by the archeological society. Societies from various countries send their archeologists to fund such work. In one place it was the Italians, in another Princeton, another Harvard, etc. Turkey is a very poor country and so far has welcomed this assistance in recovering their past.

Modern day Smyrna is Izmir. While wandering through the city trying to get back to St Polycarp we took a detour around the bay and caught this nice shot of the waterfront.