Nea Karvala

After the monastery, we headed up to a little town up in the mountains called Panagia, where we had a great lunch. In the top photo, you see Kh. Sophia checking out the meat being roasted. We tried all of them, including the offal, which is a kind of sausage made up of heart, kidney, liver, etc. It was all delicious – very traditional Greek food.

Afterwards, we headed back to the dock to catch the boat back to the mainland. Fr Alexi saved some of the bread from lunch and we used it to feed the seagulls which fly alongside the boat (see second photo).

When we got back on the mainland, we headed over to nearby Nea Karvala, which is a small town famous because it houses the relics of St Gregory the Theologian. The relics were originally housed in St Gregory’s hometown of Cappadocia (modern-day Turkey), but when the Christians were forced out of Turkey back in the early 1900s, the Greeks managed to carry the relics with them and re-establish their town, Karvala, in Greece as New Karvala.

Many theologians say that St Gregory (my patron saint) is the Church Father with the most perfect and comprehensive theology. Among many other things, he is primarily responsible for clearly setting forth and defending the true teaching about the Holy Trinity, and rescuing Christianity from the heresy of Arianism, which claimed that Christ was a created being not fully equal to the Father.

In the third photo, Fr Joseph is venerating the Saint’s relics. The fourth photo is of Fr Joseph looking back at St Gregory’s temple.

After this, we headed back to Panorama. For all the photos from the day, click here.