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.

The Green Mosque of Bursa was the first mosque we visited in Turkey. In its day it was perhaps the grandest mosque, but would later be outdone by the huge Blue Mosque built in Istanbul to rival Istanbul’s famous Hagia Sophia. Outside this mosque I saw the largest and oldest Sycamore trees I’d ever seen. Our Texas hill country Sycamores are but teenagers compared to the century old sycamores of Bursa.

David Garcia here stands in the “Poor Room” of the Green Mosque. The niches in the wall are for the poor pilgrims to place their shoes while here for prayer. They are also given some food to sustain them on their journey home. The prayer rugs each have a pointed end where the head goes facing Mecca in the East.

This is the only picture I took of our tour bus which took us from Kudasai to Istanbul. It is sitting on the street of Bursa outside the Green Mosque. In the background you can see the mountains that surround this large city. Also note the cobblestone walkway leading to the mosque and the red mushroom shaped obstacles that keep automobiles from entering the Green Mosque plaza.

Nicea’s 4th century church has the same name as the great basilica in Istanbul: Santa Sophia, or Holy Wisdom. Some architectural modifications were made after the great earthquake in 11th century, but basically what we see here is a church from the time period of the Council of Nicea in 325. When the Roman Empire fell apart in 395, Byzantines developed Nicaea, building churches, cisterns and water canals. When the Selnik Turks conquered the city they made Nicea their first capital, and added the minaret seen here to the left of the front door of the church.

The prominent feature of the church’s sanctuary is the Synthronon (seats for the bishops). These “bleachers” can be seen behind and to the right of this tour group that arrived just before we did. The second Council of Nicea was assembled here in 787. It’s importance is overshadowed in church history by the first council of Nicea because of the importance of the first council’s work in defining the nature of the Son as equal to the Father. Both were equally divine. That’s the meaning of that theological term “consubstantial.”

Our little group gathered in this section of the church to pray the Nicene creed. It is a creedal formula of faith shared by the mainline Christian churches. As a young man I was surprised and deeply moved when attending an Episcopalian Mass to learn that they too prayed the Nicene creed just as we Catholics did. When we got to the line, “We believe in the one holy Catholic and apostolic church,” I was reminded that they too were Catholic. We call ourselves “Roman Catholic" to distinguish ourselves from the "Anglican Catholics."

At the entrance to the plaza of the church in Nicea, we took advantage of the public bath room set up there in a corner of the plaza. On one side we saw this bedroom behind a curtain, and learned that was where this lady whom we met at the entrance to the “W.C.” lived. The lady was befriended by our tour leader Margarita. Her job is to monitor access to the toilets and see that they are kept clean.

When we left Nicea, we boarded a ferry that took us across the Sea of Marmara. As we departed the southern shore, this bow of the ferry boat was filled with people, but as the ferry continued it’s rather lengthy journey across the sea, the cold wind (it was April) drove most tourists to take shelter inside. As we neared the mooring at Kartal, only the brave (or foolish) remained on the bow’s bench.

We are now nearing the north shore, and will be only an hour’s drive into Istanbul. Our thoughts of arriving early at our Istanbul hotel and relaxing after a long days’ drive from Bursa were soon to be shattered by the 4:00 pm traffic in Turkey’s largest city.

The Bosphorus straights revisited. My intention in the postings from here on out is to retrace our pilgrimage steps so that the blog will eventually read in the chonological sequence in which it was experienced. The original postings were done “live” so to speak, with the result that they read from the most recent to the less recent, or in reverse historical order. This is the nature of a blog. So each section of our trip will now be covered twice. Here, back at the Bosphorus straits we see another Queen Mother Mosque with Ritz Carlton skyscraper to its right. This Queen Mum’s motto must have been “less is best” considering the enormous size of some of the other Queen Mother Mosque’s on the Bosphorus.

Sorry I don’t know what this is. Some huge palace perhaps built by one of the Sultans. It would certainly be a wonderful place to entertain visiting royalty in the heydays of the Ottoman empire.

The first depiction of Hagia Sophia that caught my attention was a cartoon of Prince Valiant drawn by Hal Foster. Hal spent lots of time detailing each of his strips, and this one showed Constantinople as seen from the sea. The great basilica of Hagia Sophia dominated the entire old city, much as the Eiffel Tower has dominated Paris since 1889. Except Hagia Sophia goes back to 537. So it was with great interest that I got to view this great basilica from the sea. It’s a shame no one has had the guts to take down those minarets since the church was changed from a mosque to a museum.

You can see I clearly enjoyed our ride down the Bosphorus. It was a Friday when we rented this boat. Friday is the Moslem holy day. The Jews worship on Saturday, Christians on Sunday and Moslems on Friday. So one of the added pleasures of this trip was hearing the prayer calls sound from each of the minarets as the One O’Clock chant rang out for midday prayer. As soon as one died out, the call from another minaret would begin. It was a distinct reminder that this “Mayday” was a holy day despite the rioting of workers in parts of the city that surrounded us.

The Blue Mosque

Hagia Sophia ceased being used as a Mosque in the 1920s when Ataturk separated the church from the state.

Not to be outdone by this loss of Istanbul’s most famous landmark, the Moslems built their own mosque directly behind Hagia Sophia. The Blue Mosque is seen here through the gates that lead into Hagia Sophia. This new mosque was built to be “bigger and better” than the landmark architecture in whose shadow she stands.

It was a Friday when we visited the Blue Mosque, so the lanterns and candles were lit in preparation for the noon day service. Here we learned that the mosque and the synagogue have similar features. The men worship in the main part of the church, with women separated in sections that adjoin the main congregation.

In this view of the interior you can see where it gets the name the “Blue Mosque.” In addition to lots of blue glass in the windows, there is a predominance of blue mosaic tiles in the walls and ceilings. You may also note than despite the iconoclastic bent of the Muslim religion, the artists certainly found creative ways of decorating their church structures.

We ran into this street vendor outside the Chora church later that day. He was selling these traditional Turkish hats, and although we declined to buy one of his hats, he was very gracious to pose for our pictures. These are good people. They are kind and respectful. Due to its huge population, Istanbul is in some ways like New York. But there is little similarity between New Yorkers and the Turks who crowd the streets of Istanbul.

This is the Chora Church, or in correct political speak, the Chora Museum. You see, in 1934, Turkey's first president, Kemal Ataturk, secularized Hagia Sophia, which was being used as a mosque, turning it into a museum. ''This should be a monument for all civilization," he declared, much to the chagrin of his country’s Muslim Imams. By the same token, the Chora Church also became a museum.

How the mosaics of Chora survived the iconoclasm of the Moslem occupation, I frankly don’t know. I’m sure it must have been explained to us, but I was so thrilled to see some Christian images in this country that I missed the point on how they managed to survive. The mosaics of Chora are impressive. On the arched ceilings of the foyer or narthex of the church are depictions of various scenes in Our Lady’s life, some from scripture, others from tradition.

The annunciation takes place while Mary is drawing water from the well. The dormition of Mary is an Oriental feast devoted to Mary’s “falling asleep” which is a euphemism for her death. When Rome issued its decree on Mary’s assumption, the papal speech writers were careful to word it in such a way as not to offend the Eastern churches: “When the time came for her to pass from this earth,” is a clever way of not saying whether she died or not.

The interesting feature of this mosaic is the figure of Mary’s risen son holding his mother as an infant at her death bed.

The central nave of the church is more Spartan with two single mosaics flanking the sanctuary: John the Evangelist to the left and Our Lady to the right.

The side altars, however are full of paintings. These may be the three great Cappadocian fathers: Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Naziensen, and Basil. Cappadocia was one of the places we did not visit on our pilgrimage. I would have enjoyed finding anything there relating to Gregory Naziensen who in my opinion is one of the greatest of the church fathers.

The two saints who flank the entrance into the main nave of the church are Peter and Paul. Saint Peter can always be recognized because he’s the one holding the keys. Paul’s receding hairline indicates an older man, the prominent forehead a man of intelligence, and then there’s those teaching fingers.

The risen Lord is depicted in a traditional pose called “the harrowing of hell” where he grabs Adam with his right hand and Eve with his left to lift them up to heaven as Jesus rises from the place of the dead. Our first parents had to wait for Jesus to redeem them from their sins before they could enter heaven.

The mosaic in Hagia Sophia I most wanted to see was that of the Blessed Virgin which is upstairs where our tour guide did not go. The Smithsonian magazine had used this as the cover picture of its December article on the church.

When the Moslems took over the church in the 15th century, the Sultan allowed several mosaics to remain, including one of the Virgin Mary and some angels whom he regarded as guardians of the city.

One of the mosaics in the entrance hall shows Leo the wise on knees before Christ. I think Leo proved to be not so wise in his marriages and is probably begging Jesus for an annulment.

In the glory days of Hagia Sophia, the Byzantine emperors from the 7th to the 14th centuries were all crowned at this spot on the floor marked with a series of inlaid rings.

When it was turned into a mosque this pulpit was erected on the right side of the sanctuary. The interesting thing about the pulpit is that the mullah does not ascend to the top to preach, for the top of the pulpit is reserved for Allah. So the mullah preaches from the stairs leading to the top.

The Basilica looks different from each point of view. This is the main entrance, which faces west and the sea. It was easy enough for the Moslems to turn it into a Mosque since the sanctuary faces the east which happens to also be the direction of Mecca.

This is the north side. Excuse me for artificially coloring some areas to highlight the different architectural areas of the church. You can see from the massive buttresses in the middle one reason the basilica has withstood so many earthquakes.

This is the side of the basilica that faces the city. Four minarets were added during the Moslem occupation. Most mosques have only one, more important ones two. But Hagia Sophia was the ultimate place of worship. This view was taken from the park that separates Hagia Sophia from the Blue Mosque behind it. The Moslems just had to build their own on a equal scale to Hagia Sophia.