Sunday of the Cross

This Sunday morning, for a change of pace, we went down to St. Demetrios' church in the center. This is, I believe, the oldest AND the largest church in Greece. It also sits atop the old Roman bath house in which St. Demetrios was martyred and, of course, it holds the saint's relics. After the service, we got a chance to visit with the priests and I hope to go back and serve in the liturgy which they hold every Friday night (outside of Lent) in the crypt underneath the church (the exact place where St Demetrios was martyred and where Christians have been praying for the last 1700+ years).

Afterwards, we met up with our friends Moses and Maria and visited with them for awhile. Moses is an American convert who has been studying theology here in Greece for about 4 years. He is now married to a Greek girl and they have a small baby.

After that, we stopped home briefly before heading over to Angela's house. Angela and her son Alexander (see previous post) were kind enough to help with some difficult spots in my Greek translation work for about an hour. We then headed over to St. Photios' church (top photo), where the hand of St. Mary Magdalene was out for veneration. It had been brought from Simonopetra Monastery on the Holy Mountain. The line, however, was several hours long and we were exhausted. I was fortunate enough to venerate it when I was visited the monastery, so we headed home.

On the way, we drove past a guy we've seen at church here in Panorama -- both at the monastery and at St. George's. He was waiting for the bus, which runs a reduced schedule on Sundays, so we went back to see if he wanted a ride.

He lives in another part of Panorama (the "nomos") which has its own church, St. Panteleimon's. We'd never been there, so we drove by there to go visit. It was closed, but I snapped this photo anyway. Anyway, all this is not that exciting, but it's our life! ( :