Exploring the good news of the kingdom of God
Our day began at the Hippodrome, or what used to be the Hippodrome. After Constantine the Great’s renovation in the 4th century, the Hippodrome could hold as many as 100,000 horse race enthusiasts. It was Churchill Downs on steroids. Today, as you can see from my picture, there is little left of the Hippodrome, except … Continue reading “Byzantine Travel Journal: Day 2 (Istanbul)”
Thanks to the genius of modern of travel, we boarded a plane in the USA and after 18 hours of travel, including two stops to change planes we were arriving halfway around the world in Istanbul, Turkey f/k/a Constantinople f/k/a Byzantium. And as amazing at it would have been to Constantine, Theodosius or Justinian to … Continue reading “Byzantine Travel Journal: Day 1 (Istanbul)”
Tomorrow we leave on our trip to Istanbul, Ephesus and Athens, where we will explore the former heart of the Byzantine Empire (Istanbul f/k/a Constantinople), the former site of a famous New Testament church (Ephesus) and Athens, where the Apostle Paul preached his famous sermon and an Athenian Supreme Court Justice (Dionysius) became a Christian … Continue reading “Byzantine Travel Journal: Preparation”
As we have slipped back into our lives at home, I’ve thought through what we read, saw, and learned related to our Early Christian, Medieval Travel Journal tour. The first two three hundred of the years of the Church was marked most conspicuously by persecution. We discussed some of those first century martyrs, including Ignatius … Continue reading “Early Christian, Medieval Travel Journal-Epilogue”
Our first stop of the day was the Palace of Theodoric, 50 feet from the front door of our hotel. The facade is still standing, along with some parts of interior walls. It is connected to the Church of St. Apollinaire we visited yesterday. Perhaps the proximity of the church to the palace says something … Continue reading “Early Christian, Medieval Travel Journal-Day 11”