"Edwards in Greece" Goes to the US

I made the VERY long trip back to the US starting on Wednesday morning. About 20 hours later, I landed in Philadelphia. We arrived back at my parents' house in Maryland about 9 PM Wednesday night (4 AM my time). This is my first time back in the US since leaving for Greece nearly 2 years ago. The culture is a little bit different -- I'm certainly getting some curious looks about wearing cassock!

A couple things struck me as I was waiting in the Washington DC airport for my connection to Philadelphia. First, I sat next to a guy who was using his super duper cell phone with hands-free and his laptop computer. As I sat down, I heard him say: "Understood. So should we schedule a sit-down to put some meat on this concept?"

I thought: "Do people really speak this way?"

Later, I sat across from a young guy. He was about 27 years old, neatly groomed and dressed, looking very professional. He was clearly on some sort of business trip. It then struck me that he was wearing a wedding ring and somehow it seemed odd to me. I started thinking why that should have struck me as odd. It was because he was a young man in his 20s who was married and had a job! That's why I noticed -- because this would be almost unthinkable in Greece! This guy probably even had his own place to live! And all this before the age of 40! Inconceivable in Greece! ( :

Anyway, my parents live and work on the campus of a very small private school, with about 130 students from 9-12. This morning, I had been scheduled to give a short talk to the religion class about Orthodoxy. It turned into quite an event, with the whole school (including faculty) being invited to attend. In the end, it was about 30 people. Interestingly, one girl is a foreign student from Moldava (Russian Orthodox), and I think she was very happy that someone was trying to explain her religion.

I showed some photos from my trips to Mt Athos and Serbia, and gave a historical timeline for the Church. In the bottom photo, I'm passing around a piece of cotton soaked with the myrrh from a wonderworking icon of the Panagia on the island of Andros.

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! ( :

Annunciation

Well, on Sunday, Pelagia and I went downtown to Panagia Ahiropiitos (the enormous basilica church built around 450 AD) for the Liturgy, where I was able to serve with my spiritual father, Fr. Spyridon, and a deacon friend of mine from Romania.

After the service, we met up with the Montagues (another American family here), who had run into an American pilgrim. We all went together down to the Metropolis to venerate the relics of St. Gregory Palamas, who was celebrated on Sunday. We stopped on the way at St. Sophia's, an enormous church which served as St. Gregory's cathedral when he was archbishop of the city. It was here that he delivered his famous sermons on the uncreated energies of God.

On Tuesday, we celebrated the Feast of the Annunciation (which is also Greek Independence Day) here in Panorama at our local parish of St. George's. In the afternoon, for the misimeri meal, we were invited to our friend Angela's for fresh fish, baked in the oven, Greek-style. It was delicious. Our friend Philip also met us there.

In the photo, from left to right, is Philip, Angela's son Alexander, and Angela.

Angela is originally from Scotland, where she converted to Orthodoxy back in the early 80s. She then moved to Thessaloniki to study theology and hasn't left. She has been a great friend to us!

How good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity

"The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
and the calf and the lion and the fatling together..." (Is 11:6)

We couldn't believe what we witnessed yesterday afternoon.

We've had our dog, Argo, since about August, and in these 7 or 8 months, his only purpose in life seems to be to put the cat in his mouth. The cat, suffice it to say, strains his every nerve just to tolerate the dog. He spends most of the day running away from him and sitting above him, swatting his nose.

This is what made yesterday's scene so amazing. Perhaps they finally realized their kinship as fellow Greeks. ( :

On another note, the bottom photo is of my new vestments, as I mentioned in the last post. Pelagia took this picture this morning after the Presanctified Liturgy.

First Presanctified Liturgy

Well, I don't know that this is very "blog-worthy," but here's a very short video (22 seconds) from the Presanctified Liturgy that we just celebrated here in Panorama. It was inside our main parish of St. George's, but in the small side chapel dedicated to St. Nektarios.

I asked Pelagia to take the video because I wanted to be able to show the new dark-colored vestments I finally got yesterday (my Metropolis in Volos was kind enough to provide them for my use during Lent). Unfortunately, you can't seem them very well in this video. Maybe we'll get a good photo next time!

So, with dark vestments in hand, tonight was the first time I served in a Presanctified Liturgy.

At the end, Fr. Alexios brought out a small relic of St. Sava the Sanctified for veneration, in commemoration of the Church's celebration tomorrow, March 20 NS, of the monastics who were martyred at the St. Sava's monastery in Palestine.

Icon Workshop

About a month and a half ago, Pelagia and I went to the small Serbian church in downtown Thessaloniki to celebrate the feast of St. Sava. Among the many wonderful people there, we met one Serbian iconographer who has his own workshop in Thessaloniki. My Serbian friends have been telling me ever since to go by and visit, so I finally did today while I was in town for Ancient Greek class.

The iconographer, Zlatko, is considered a 'master.' I don't know anything about iconography other than what I like, and I *really* like his work. I only stopped in for a quick visit and to get some pricing information in order to possibly order an icon for someone in the US, but--with typical Serbian hospitality--he insisted on stopping everything he was doing and giving me a tour of his workshop. He then sat me down with the customary slivovitz (Serbian plum-flavored hard alcohol) and told me some stories about miracle-working icons, places to be sure to visit on the Holy Mountain, etc.

The first and third photos show the icon he is working on right now. He explained this is a new style that he had been experimenting with for 10 years, but it's only been in the last year that he feels he has enough of a handle on it to actually produce icons for the Church.

The second photo shows some icons that his students are preparing, and the bottom photo is taken from the top of the steps (the workshop is in the basement).