Day Twelve - Corinth and Mycenae

It's hard to believe, but this will most likely be our final post from our pilgrimage in the Footsteps of St. Paul. Tomorrow morning, we begin the long journey back to Indiana. I do plan to upload pictures once I return home - adding pictures to the blog turned out to be more time-consuming and complicated than I had anticipated. So be sure to check back in the coming days for a photo retrospective of our pilgrimage. But first, reflections on our final day.

We began this morning by traveling south of Athens to the Peloponessian Peninsula, about 90 minutes from the center of Athens. We made a quick stop at the Corinth Canal, built in 1893 to connect the Aegean and Ionian Seas and provide a much shorter route for ships than around the peninsula. Our sightseeing proper began at the ancient city of Mycenae. One of the two great ancient European civilizations - the other being the Minoans on Crete - the Myceneans reached their height during the Bronze Age, around 1500 BC. This confederation of kingdoms included such cities as Sparta and Athens, but its center was the city of Mycenae. Today, we know the most about this civilation from Homer's epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey. Half of those involved in the famous Trojan War were Myceneans, including their commander, King Agammemnon of Mycenae. The city of Mycenae was lost for centuries before being rediscovered in the 1870s. Today, you can visit the acropolis of the city, including the foundations of the palace buildings of the kings, various other foundations, and the famous Mycenean tombs. We viewed two different tombs, including one that is thought to be the Tomb of Agammemnon. All that remains now are the foundations of the buildings, but many treasures and objects made of gold were discovered at the site in the 1870s - we viewed these treasures on our first day in Greece at the National Archeological Museum in Athens.

Following our visit to Mycenae, we traveled to ancient Corinth where we began with lunch at outside restaurants just outside the archeological site. Corinth was a major trade and commercial city in the ancient world, and at the time of St. Paul was one of the most important cities in the Roman Empire, probably even more significant than Athens. St. Paul spent 18 months living in Corinth, where he practiced his trade as a tentmaker along with Priscilla and Aquila. He later wrote at least four letters to the church in Corinth, two of which are preserved in the New Testament. Today, ancient Corinth is a ruined archeological site with two noteworthy components - a few columns of an ancient Temple to Apollo which is the oldest stone temple in Greece, and significant remains from the Roman Agora or marketplace. The agora contained shops and workshops, most likely including Paul's tent shop. It also includes the Bema, the speaker's platform from which politicians and religious leaders, including Paul, would address the community. While we were there, workers were setting up a platform on the Bema in preparation for tomorrow's conclusion to the Year of St. Paul, when the Archbishop of Athens and a Papal Representative will visit Corinth and speak to the people from the same spot where St. Paul spoke. While standing in the Agora, we also read the words of St. Paul - his famous treatise on love from 1 Corinthians 13.

The afternoon concluded with Mass. Since all of Corinth is an archeological site, and there are no Catholic churches in the area (only Orthodox churches), we celebrated an outdoor Mass at Cenchrae. Mentioned briefly in Acts 18.18, Cenchrae is the port city of Corinth. Located right on the Aegean Sea, this is where St. Paul would have sailed in and out of Corinth. There are just a few ruins left of the ancient port, but we were able to celebrate Mass among the ruins, right on the water - and with a public beach not too far away! Really for the only time during this pilgrimage, we had the opportunity to celebrate Mass very much on ground where St. Paul walked, using the stone blocks of the port as an altar and seating area. As has often happened during our Masses, as the Mass went on we slowly gathered a small crowd of people who were passing by, saw what was happening, and were drawn to us. It was quite moving and a fitting way to conclude our pilgrimage In the Footsteps of St. Paul.

In just a few minutes, we will leave the hotel for a farewell dinner at a restaurant in the Plaka, an old neighborhood in the shadow of the Acropolis here in Athens. Then, after one final night of sleep, we will bid farewell to Greece and the Mediterranean and bring our experiences and stories back to all of you, our family and friends whom we look forward to seeing!