Day 11: May 13 (Friday) A free day to revisit places in the Old Town of Jerusalem

On this last full day we get our final chance to go back to the Old Town of Jerusalem and see some of the sites for the second time, or try to see some new places. The bus takes us there in the morning after breakfast, but I think some people did not wait for that way to get there, and started their day on foot a lot earlier. It would be nice if they shared the description of their adventures here.....

Well, I decided to stick with Fr. Martin and Ryan, they seemed to have a good plan, well balanced between some shopping, sightseeing and sampling Israeli foods for the last time..... We wondered the narrow streets, stopping at gift stores, getting some souvenirs. At one point we ended up in an alley that seemed to be more for locals than tourists, no tourist is looking for this kind of stuff.....

Fr. Martin tried to buy some wool for making prayer ropes, but the thick type he needs would require ordering from a catalog, all they had there was lots of ugly acrylic.....

We bumped into "our" people from time to time, it was rather fun.

We ventured again into the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and the tried to walk around the perimeter of the wall surrounding the old town, but the cars ran us off the streets and we ended up back in the narrow streets, towards pizza place for lunch and a meeting to take the bus to the hotel.

Day 10, May 12th: Mt. Sinai and drive back to Jerusalem

Day 10 May 12 Mt. Sinai and drive back to Jerusalem

Ryan, Theodore and George start their day at 1am with a hike up Mt. Sinai to watch the sunrise at 5am. Then they hurry down the mountain and join us just 10 min into the Liturgy at the Church!

We arrive at the Monastery around 5:45am and walk up to the Monastery complex to join in the Divine Liturgy with the monks. I think Fr. Meletios and Fr. Martin attended the Matins service before that, since they spent the night at the monastery. The inside of the Church is the most amazing I have ever been to. The presence of God there is undeniable.  We are all so happy when Ryan, Ted and George join us just minutes into the start of the Liturgy. Fr. Meletios tells us that we have the blessing of the Archbishop to receive communion, which we all do.

After the end of the Liturgy, we venerate the relics of St. Catherine, which Fr. Nillos brings out into the church, and each one of us received a ring of St. Catherine. We spend a few minutes with Fr. Nillos, who tells us the story of the Monastery and all the events that took place there. There are several places on the internet that give a great summary, I encourage you to read them. Just the story of St. Catherine is the most amazing, I think she is now one of my favorite Saints! We take pictures of the Burning Bush, the well by which Moses met 7 daughters and his wife Sephora.....

We then go into the Museum of icons. The icons of St. Catherine's monastery are some of the most famous in the world. The time in the icon museum is just not long enough, to look and appreciate what we are seeing. Steven did a great job of taking pictures of the various notes and also manuscripts, I feel like I missed most of the museum, concentrating on the icon of Christ Pantacrator and the icon of the Ladder of Divine Ascent (the book "Ladder of Divine Ascent" was written at St. Catherine's Monastery by St. John Climacus, where he was an abbot in (....)

We are then met by Fr. Justin, a monk from Texas, a historian and keeper of monastery's library. He actually takes us to the library room and shows us a few rare manuscripts that will be shown at the Metropolitan  Museum of Arts during an exhibit next year, maybe....

And all along, as we move throught the monastery that morning, we experience rain!!! It only rains maybe 4 days a year and it rains while we are there!!!

We also quickly visit the ossuary, a place where monks' bones are kept, all of the monks who lived here since the 6th century. It the desert it is impossible to find places to bury everybody separately, so the graves are recycled and the bones stored in the ossuary, separated anatomically. The body of St. Stephanos is kept intact in a glass case.

We finish with a stop in the gift store and head down the road to the bus.

Drive to the hotel in Jerusalem is long, with a change of buses at the border (Jalal picks us up). Some way into our drive we run into traffic problems, caused by really bad accident. See Fr. Martin's Facebook entry, he found a link to an article about this accident. Very tragic, a whole family lost its life in a head on collision with a bus.

Oh, and Fr. Mel gets his acupuncture treatment, while riding the bus. All sorts of services included on this pilgrimage!

We stop a couple of times, once for lunch at the dairy kabutz, and again for coffee somewhere at a rest stop. We make it in time to the hotel for a quick dinner and then a meeting to look back a little at our trip and our experiences.  I hope everybody  agrees with me that this was the most amazing trip ever. Of course the places we visited were amazing and spectacular, but what I liked the most was all the people with whom I got to see these places. We were a totally random group that in the end felt like family, each and every single person. I miss each and every one of the very much. At one point Dan joked that I must take drugs early in the morning, because I have such a happy smile at breakfast. It made me realize that I am so happy seeing them all each morning, there is no other way to greet them but with a huge smile. So here is your answer Dan! :)

Oh, I guess I still need to write a few words about my Day 11, which we had as free day. If anybody else wants to send me a summary of their free day, I will add that to the post. It might be fun to do the last day that way.

Day 9: Wednesday May 11 Drive to Mt. Sinai

Day 9, Wednesday May 11 Drive to Mt. Sinai

We left really early for our drive to Egypt. The big suitcases stayed at the hotel and we just brought day bags for one night at the hotel in the town of St. Catherine. Joseph drove with us to the border.  As always,
on the way there he told us detalis about the past and the present. As we drove past the Dead Sea, he said that the only way to traverse the desert was using a camel. You could not do it on foot, not even on a horse.
This is why the camel is called the "ship of the desert".

He pointed out accacia trees. The Arc of the Covenanat was made from accacia wood. The presence of accacia tree in the desert indicates that there is water in that area, this is where one is likely to be successful in digging a well.

We look for ibex goats on the slops of the mountains we pass.

First short stop was to dip our toes in the Dead Sea. We stopped at a resort complex and walked to the beach. Joseph warned us that if we stayed too long, your toes would get picked and shrivel away :). The water is very salty, it tastes almost acidic and stings if you have a cut or a mosquito bite. We took some pictures and off we went.

We drove by Mt. Sodom and a statue of Lot's wife, who turned into the stone after looking back.
Dead Sea Works is a factory on the shore of Dead Sea where they extract lots of minerals. Dead Sea is one of the biggest deposits of many minerals. We leave Dead Sea behind and keep driving through the desert.....

Lunch stop is at Yotvata Kabutz. THis place is famous for its dairy products and especially ice cream.

As we keep driving, Joseph said that we went by the Timna National Park, with King Solomon mine, where copper for the Pharaohs came from, and also malakayt (sp?) stone.


THen we reach the Red Sea and the city of Eliat, a resort with many attractions such as Imax theartre, underwater observatory, shopping malls. This resort city receives very little rain and has no water source near by, so all its water comes from desalination. The Red Sea has beautiful coral reefs, warm water and sharks! On the other side of Eliat is Jordan's city Aquaba, which is I think their only sea access.

As we get closer to the border with Egypt, we say goodbye to Joseph. Fr. Meletios offers him a beautiful cross as a gift, one he will be able to use when he becomes priest!  Joseph tells us that each one of
us is now a "hadji", a pilgrim blessed throught his/her visit to the Holy Land. And it is up to us to pass that blessing to people in our lives who have not been here yet....

We go throught the border crossing with Egypt, mostly without too much excitement, but its a different experience. We walk with our luggage, through Israeli security to Egyptian land boarder crossing of Taba.
On the other side there is a new bus and drive Mohamed, a new guide Osama, his assistant, a police security preson in plain clothes.  I think we have a car escort for a little while too.   Our guide is very eager to tell us all he can.
Our drive is 1/2 hour from Taba to Nueba and then 2.5 hours from Nueba to the monastery.

We stop to look at some ancient pictures on the granit rocks in the desert. That's were some Bedouin women came to sell us some souvenirs...

He tells the story of St. Catherine's monastery fairly well. The first Chapel was built in the year 330 by St. Helena on the spot of the Burning Bush. The mountains of this area are granite, In the 6th century the walls were built first, and then the Basilica. The Church is dedicated to Transfiguration.  The actual Burning Bush has been carbon dated to be 3500 years old. `

THe story of St. Catherine is the most beautiful, even as Osama tells it.

We arrive at the city of St. Catherine, and after a short bus tour of the Bedouin city, we arrive at our hotel. Fr. Meletios and Fr. Martin continue on to spend the night at the monastery. Food here is not as great as in Israel, and we were told by Joseph not to eat anything uncooked. After dinner we went shopping for souvenirs in the boutiques of the hotel, and there was a ton of them!

Day 8 (Tuesday): Jerusalem: Way of the Cross, Church of the Resurection, visit with Patriarch, St. Simeon's church, Ascension, Gethsemeny

Day 8, May 10th      Tuesday

We start our day with a visit to Old Jerusalem.  We entered through the Lion's Gate, originally known as St. Steven's gate. St. Steven was thrown from this gate and stoned to death, he is known as the first martyr (protomartyr). His stoning was witnessed by St. Paul.

There are seven gates into Jerusalem:
  Damascus (under restoration)
  Harod
  Dung
  ......

First we walked to St. Anne church, a place where Joachim and Anna lived, and the Virgin Mary was born. One of the Christ's miracles in Jerusalem (70% of all miracles were performed near in the Sea of Galilee) was healing of the man paralyzed for 38 years near the pools of Bethesda. The pools are located very near St. Anna's Church. Jesus might have actually seen that man as a boy when he came with his mother to visit the house where his mother grew up. The healing pool, about the sirring of the water to heal, was a pagan belief.

Next we walked Way of the Cross, probably most well known to most other Christians who come to Jerusalem.  The way of the Cross is a Catholic arrangement but it is very close to the route which Christ would have taken.

There are "stations" marked on the buildings:

I  "Ecce Homo" church od the Sisters of Zion order.

II  Christ's Prison Church - Jesus was brought to the Romans since the Jews did not have the authority to impose the death punishment. This is why they had to bring him to Pontius Pilate.

III Place where Jesus fell under the Cross

IV  Place where Jesus met His Mother

VI  Place where Veronica wiped his face

Last five stations are in the Church of the Sepulchar. It is amazing how all these little churches/chapels are connected, right next to one another, built to commemorate different parts of the route that Christ took on the way to His Cross.

A group photo is taken just before we enter the Church of the Holy Sepulcher (Church of the Ressurection). Don't we all look happy? That's because we are!

We arrive at the Tomb of Christ and Joseph quickly gets us into the line which is not as long that morning as it could be.  The Tomb has two chambers, first is where the stone was rolled away (there is a piece of stone there in a glass case) and the actual place where Christ's Body lay. We stood in line for a few minutes, getting ready to enter. Joseph told us about how to enter and what to look for, like the fact that the only original thing in the main chamber is the bedrock behind the icon (you have to open the icon to touch the bedrock, which we did!). I have to say that being there was a very moving experience, even if at the moment you are there there is so much to see and feel that it's almost impossible to be present as one should be. It would be difficult to realize the enormity of this experience if one were there totally alone and in perfect silence, but being there surrounded by the tourists, pushing and shoving makes being present almost impossible. But the way I like to think about being in all these places, whether I felt present or not, is remember Fr. Mel's words from one of his talks: that being in the presence of God changes us, imperceptibly to us and others, but nevertheless very much for real, even on the molecular level. I sure hope this kind of change happened to/in me on this wonderful trip!!!

Well, then we went around the Church some more, looking at different architectural features of the church, which include early byzantine, late byzantine and the crusaders'.

The historical facts about the places and events related to this church were reported as early as year 90 (St. John the Theologian would still have been alive) by a pagan historians. They wrote about "the Nazarenes" (followers of a certain Nazarene). He said the Nazarines go to venerate at certain places and they claim their leader has resurrected.

Roman's built pagan temples over these places to suppress Jewish and Christian traces.

Next we visited Adam's Chapel, which commemorates the place where Adam was buried and freed the moment Christ died and stepped down to Hades. The rock split beneath the Cross. All ancient Saints resurrected at that moment, since Christ broke the gates of hell and freed them. Crusaders buried their kings under the Calvary:

Next we entered the room full of relics (museum of the Patriarchate):
 St. Andrew of Crete
 John Chrysostome
 St. Martinien
 St. Panteleimon
 St. Macrine (la main gauche)
 St. John the Baptist
 St. Mercure
 Apostles Andrew, Philippe
 Constantine
 St. Basil
 St. Mary Magdalene (hand)
 st. Paraskieva
 st. Charalampy
 St. Steven

(and that is only the few I had time to write down)

Then we went for a audience at with the Patriarch of Jerusalem. He gave a really nice speech about the meaning of the presence of the Patriarchate in the Holy Land. The Revelation of God started in the Holy Land on Mt. Sinai (with Moses seeing a God in the burning bush and receiving the Commandments) and it culminated in Jerusalem with the Resurrection of our Lord. So Patriarchate's presence in the Holy Places is of spiritual importance but also a guaranty of physical presence of Christianity in the Middle East.

Lunch: part of the group sat down at a nice Italian restaurante, while others found a pizza-by-the-slice next door.

Next, St. John's monastery (of St. John the Baptist)

Then we drive through Jerusalem, by the University, main bank, Kneset, Museum where Dead Sea Scrolls are kept (most of us are so tired, it is getting hard to keep track of where we are, what we are seeing, even my own notes fro these last places for the day are now making no sense.....)

Monastery of the Cross, looks like the Monastery of St. Catherine (I cannot remember if we even went inside). Yes we did. It is an Armenian Orthodox Church, with very old frescoes and ancient Armenian writings.

I do remember though going into the Monastery of St. Simeon. He was one of the three scholars who translated the Bible. We were told his wonderful story, I will add this story here later, since it is long. He is the one who was only able to die after holding Baby Jesus at the age of 270 (some say 300).  His body was stolen many times, and currently I think is still in Zata, Croatia.

Church of Ascension is on the Mount of Olives. It was saved from destruction many times and in miraculous ways, most recently in 1992 . We visit the rock with Christ's footprint. Fr. Achillos is abbot of that monastery.

We drive by the church "Pater Noster", where Christ taught his disciples how to pray.

Church of All Nations in the Garden of Gethsemane.  We visit the garden, with beautiful old olive trees. Eight of the trees in the garden are at least 2000 years old. Inside the church is the Rock of Agony. We sit by it for a few moments.

Final stop that day was the Tomb of the Virgin Mary. It was saved becasue it was a mosque for a time. I think this is where we sat for a few moments in silence.