Daily prayers in the Kingdom Season with USPG: (18) 22 November 2023

The Library of Celsus in Ephesus was built between 110 and 135 AD by the Consul Gaius Julius Aquilus (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

In this time between All Saints’ Day and Advent Sunday, we are in the Kingdom Season in the Calendar of the Church of England. This week began with the Second Sunday before Advent (19 November 2023).

The calendar of the Church of England in Common Worship today (22 November) remembers Saint Cecilia (ca 230), martyr in Rome.

Throughout this week, I am reflecting on the seven churches in cities or places that give their names to the titles of nine letters or epistles by Saint Paul: Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colossae and Thessaloniki.

My reflections this morning follow this pattern:

1, A reflection on a Pauline church;

2, the Gospel reading of the day in the Church of England lectionary;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

The ruins of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the classical world (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Paul’s Ephesus:

The Apostle Paul wrote 14 of the 27 books the New Testament. He founded several Christian communities in Asia Minor and Europe from the mid-40s to the mid-50s AD, and wrote letters to the churches in Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colossae and Thessaloniki.

The Letter to the Ephesians is the tenth book in the New Testament. According to tradition, the Apostle Paul wrote the letter while he was in prison in Rome, ca 62 CE, about the same time as his Letter to the Colossians and his Letter to Philemon. However, many critical scholars question its authorship and suggest it may have been written between 80 and 100 CE.

The themes include living together in love and unity in the Church and keeping of Christ’s body, the Church, pure and holy. In the second part of the letter (Ephesians 4: 17 to 6: 20), there is practical advice on living a holy, pure, and Christ-inspired lifestyle.

For me, one of the key message in this letter is: ‘Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us’ (Ephesians 5: 1-2).

‘Llive in love, as Christ loved us’ (Ephesians 5: 2) ... flowers in the grounds of the basilica in Ephesus (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Strolling down the paved Priests’ Way or Curetes Street in Ephesus some years ago at the height of the summer, a guide happily pointed out the vista ahead, including – in his own words – the ‘Library of Celsius.’ Well, it was a scorching hot day. And – given the decadent reputation of Ephesus at the height of its prosperity – I had no doubt the library shelves once held some hot topics.

Pompeii aside, Ephesus is the largest and best-preserved ancient city in the Mediterranean, and after Istanbul it is the most popular tourist site in Turkey. From early morning, the site is packed with tourists, who are often rushed through the streets in an hour or less. Yet, despite the commercialisation of the site, visitors never fail to be overawed by the dramatic impact of Ephesus, with its well-preserved and restored buildings, temples, baths, lavatories, fountains, streets, agorae, monuments and theatres.

Ephesus owed its early growth and prosperity to its proximity to the Temple of Artemis, which was one of the Seven Wonders of the World – according to Pausanias, it was the largest building of the ancient world – where the Greek goddess Artemis and the Anatolian goddess Cybele were worshipped as Artemis of Ephesus.

The temple was burnt down by Herostratus, a lunatic, one night in 356 BCE. By coincidence, this was the night that Alexander the Great was born. Restoration began at once, with plans for a larger and grander temple. When Alexander the Great defeated the Persians, he was greeted warmly in Ephesus with a triumphal entry. He saw that the Temple of Artemis had not yet been completed, and proposed financing the work with his name inscribed on the temple. But the people of Ephesus refused, arguing that it was not fitting for one god to build a temple for another.

Ephesus is mentioned over 500 times in Greek literature alone, and was home to many important historical figures, including the poet Callinus, the satirist Hipponax, the philosopher Heraclitus, the painter Parrhasius, the grammarian Zenodotos and the physicians Soranus and Rufus. As the gateway to Asia and the East, it was at the heart of trade between Rome and India. It was once the capital of the richest province in the Roman world and the largest port city in the civilised world. When the port silted up in the sixth century, the prosperity of Ephesus began to fade, but even the port of London did not reach the size or importance of Ephesus at its height until the Tudor era.

Walking through Ephesus today, it is impossible not to be taken by the beauty of the Temple of Hadrian, with its relief of Medusa, the Fountain of Trajan, the Baths of Scholastica, the Theatre that could seat 25,000 to 40,000 people, or the Arcadian Way, leading from the port to the Theatre and along which Cleopatra made her triumphal entrance to Ephesus.

The Library of Celsus was built between 110 and 135 CE by the Consul Gaius Julius Aquilus in honour of his father, Julius Celsus Polemaenanus. It is a truly magnificent and imposing two-storey building with a finely-crafted façade, four niches for statues personifying Virtue, Wisdom, Fate and Genius – long removed to Vienna – a spacious paved courtyard, and reading rooms with cavities to keep over 12,000 papyrus scrolls. The library faced east so that the reading rooms could make the best use of the morning light.

A carved relief of Nike, the goddess of victory, on a paved street in Ephesus (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Ephesus is of particular interest to Christians because of its associations with the Apostle Paul, later with Saint John the Evangelist, and as the location for two Councils of the Church in the fifth century.

The Apostle Paul spent two or three years there between 52 and 54, and his letters from Ephesus make this time the best documented period of his career. Ephesus was equidistant from his churches in Achaia, Macedonia and Galatia.

From Ephesus, Saint Paul wrote his Epistles to the Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, his First Letter to the Corinthians, and a lost Letter to Laodicea. Some were written from his jail in a tower near the west end of the city walls.

A stall outside the Isa Bey Camii in Selçuk near Ephesus selling souvenir statues of Artemis, Greek philosophers and the Virgin Mary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Paul’s preaching in Ephesus posed a real threat to the cult of Artemis. The city’s silversmiths began to fret about their future, worried that religious tourism might start to drop off or that the sales of souvenir statues of Artemis and votive offerings might dwindle. Demetrius called the silversmiths together in the theatre, where they howled: ‘Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!’

The crowd was calmed, but Paul was eventually forced to leave for Macedonia, where he would preach to the church in Thessaloniki and Philippi (Acts 19: 23 to 20: 1). Paul found it emotionally draining to leave Ephesus, and so said his farewell to the elders of Ephesus in the neighbouring port of Miletus (Acts 20: 17), leaving Timothy in charge of the Church in Ephesus (I Timothy 1: 3). But Paul never forgot the church in Ephesus and wrote his Epistle to the Ephesians from his prison in Rome before his martyrdom.

By the end of the first century, Ephesus was an important centre of Christianity and was one of the Seven Churches addressed in the Book of Revelation by Saint John the Evangelist from his exile on the neighbouring island of Patmos.

After Domitian’s death, Saint John is said to have moved from Patmos to Ephesus, where he wrote his Gospel. John, who is known in the Greek Church as Saint John the Theologian, is said to have died in Ephesus in the year 100. He was buried on the nearby hill of Ayasoluk, whose name is a corruption of the Greek Aghios Theologos – the Holy or Saintly Theologian.

The Basilica of Saint John the Theologian gave the later name of Ayasoluk to the area overlooking Ephesus and the Temple of Artemis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint John’s disciples in Ephesus included Ignatius of Antioch, who died a martyr in the Colosseum in Rome on 19 December 107. Before his death, Ignatius wrote his Letter to the Church at Ephesus, in which he refers to Onesimus, the Bishop of Ephesus. Few writers have resisted the temptation to identify this Onesimus with the ex-slave who was converted by Paul in Ephesus and who is the subject of Paul’s Letter to Philemon.

The persecution of the Christians of Ephesus under the Emperor Decius in the second century gave rise to the legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, who slept in a cave for two centuries until the persecutions came to an end. The story is popular among Christians and Muslims.

The Temple of Artemis was sacked by the Goths in the year 263, and the cult of Artemis went into decline after the legalisation of Christianity under the Emperor Constantine. In 406, Saint John Chrysostom, Patriarch of Constantinople, ordered the final destruction of the temple.

By the early fifth century, Ephesus was such an important centre of Christianity that the third Ecumenical Council of the Church met there in the year 431. The council was called by the Emperor Theodosius II and met inside the Double Church, one of the largest in Christianity at the time, and the first church ever dedicated to the Virgin Mary. At the council, Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, was condemned and deposed for heresy and the Nicaean Creed was affirmed.

A second council met at Ephesus in 449, but its decrees were overturned two years later at Chalcedon and the second council has been known ever since as the ‘Robber Council.’

A century later, the Emperor Justinian replaced two small churches at the tomb of Saint John on the top of the hill of Ayasoluk. The new Basilica of Saint John became one of the largest and most ornate Byzantine churches. It was 110 metres long and 40 metres wide, with one large dome and ten smaller ones, supported by columns, and looked down on the ruins of the former Temple of Artemis. What remained of the temple was finally razed to the ground by the Byzantines, who carted most of the remaining masonry up to Ayasoluk or away to Constantinople.

The lone remaining column of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, seen from the streets below the hill of Aysoluk in Selçuk (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The town was severely damaged by an earthquake in 614. The decline of Ephesus was hastened with sackings by the Arabs in 654-655, 700 and 716. When the Seljuk took Ephesus in 1071-1100, it was a small village. The Byzantines returned in 1100, changed the name of Ephesus to Aghios Theologos, and remained here until 1304, when the region was conquered by Sasa Bey.

Ephesus flourished again for a short period under the Seljuk Turks, and in 1375 the Isa Bey Camii or Prophet Jesus Mosque was built below the slopes of Ayasoluk, using some remaining Roman columns to support the gabled room. The Basilica of Saint John was finally destroyed in 1402 by Tamerlane’s Mongols, and in 1425 the region became part of the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Mehmed II. Ephesus was completely abandoned later in the 15th century, but a new town grow up around the hill of Ayasoluk or Ayasluğ and was renamed Selçuk in 1914.

Some of the colonnades and walls of Saint John’s Basilica have been re-erected in recent years, giving a glimpse of its former grandeur. The tomb of Saint John is pointed out in the apse, there is a Baptistry in the shape of a cross, and a marble plaque marks the visit of Pope Paul VI to the basilica in 1967.

During his visit to Ephesus, Paul VI also prayed in the ruins of Double Church or the Basilica of Saint Mary, where the Councils of Ephesus met. Although the ruins are only a few metres west of the main car park at Ephesus, they are seldom included in the guided tours, and are often off-limits for tourists. Instead, tourists in popular resorts such as Kusadasi are often bussed to Meryemana, the so-called ‘House of Mary,’ paying exorbitant fees to attend Sunday Mass at a site marketed as the place where the Virgin Mary lived out her last days.

The Early Church originally held that Mary lived and died in Jerusalem. A later myth said that in her final years she lived under the protection of Saint John. It was a further step to suggest that she had lived with him in Ephesus. But the tradition surrounding the House of Mary is built on an incredible set of presumptions resting solely on the dreams of a German nun and seer, Catherine Emmerich (1774-1824), and on the curious interpretations placed on those dreams by French Lazarist priests living in Smyrna (Izmir) in 1891.

Instead, it’s worth spending more time in Ephesus before moving on to neighbouring Priene, Miletus and Didmya, three more breathtaking classical sites on the Anatolian coast.

Saint Paul said farewell to the elders of Ephesus at Miletus … many of the Greek inscriptions at the theatre in Miletus are still legible today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 19: 11-28 (NRSVA):

11 As they were listening to this, he went on to tell a parable, because he was near Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. 12 So he said, ‘A nobleman went to a distant country to get royal power for himself and then return. 13 He summoned ten of his slaves, and gave them ten pounds, and said to them, “Do business with these until I come back.” 14 But the citizens of his country hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, “We do not want this man to rule over us.” 15 When he returned, having received royal power, he ordered these slaves, to whom he had given the money, to be summoned so that he might find out what they had gained by trading. 16 The first came forward and said, “Lord, your pound has made ten more pounds.” 17 He said to him, “Well done, good slave! Because you have been trustworthy in a very small thing, take charge of ten cities.” 18 Then the second came, saying, “Lord, your pound has made five pounds.” 19 He said to him, “And you, rule over five cities.” 20 Then the other came, saying, “Lord, here is your pound. I wrapped it up in a piece of cloth, 21 for I was afraid of you, because you are a harsh man; you take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow.” 22 He said to him, “I will judge you by your own words, you wicked slave! You knew, did you, that I was a harsh man, taking what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow? 23 Why then did you not put my money into the bank? Then when I returned, I could have collected it with interest.” 24 He said to the bystanders, “Take the pound from him and give it to the one who has ten pounds.” 25 (And they said to him, “Lord, he has ten pounds!”) 26 “I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away. 27 But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them—bring them here and slaughter them in my presence”.’

Remains of the basilica in Ephesus … the third Ecumenical Council of the Church met there in the year 431 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 22 November 2023):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence’. This theme was introduced on Sunday.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (22 November 2023) invites us to pray in these words:

Let us pray that churches around the world might become leaders in their communities for upholding the rights of women and girls.

An elaborate marble fountain was supplied with fresh waters from the channels that once brought water to the pool in the Baptistry in Ephesus (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Collect:

Heavenly Father,
whose blessed Son was revealed
to destroy the works of the devil
and to make us the children of God and heirs of eternal life:
grant that we, having this hope,
may purify ourselves even as he is pure;
that when he shall appear in power and great glory
we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom;
where he is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

Gracious Lord,
in this holy sacrament you give substance to our hope:
bring us at the last
to that fullness of life for which we long;
through Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Yesterday’s Reflection (Galatia)

Continued Tomorrow (Philippi)

The caves of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Sunset on a beach at Kusadasi near Ephesus (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Greeks have a word for it (33) Genocide

The monument on Mikrasiaton Square in Rethymnon commemorating the Greek Genocide in Asia Minor 100 years ago (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

In every corner of Rethymnon, it seems, I stumble across reminders of the Greek Genocide in Asia Minor a century ago.

These reminders come are found in street names and placenames, from Smyrni Street beneath the slopes of the Fortezza, and Mikrasiaton Square in the heart of the old town, to Tsesmes, the suburban village on the eastern fringes of Rethymnon, beside La Stella Hotel, where I was staying for the past two weeks.

Mikrasiaton Square (Πλατεία Μικρασιατών) has been transformed into the biggest square in the heart of the Old Town. Its name recalls the refugees from Asia Minor, who were known as Μικρασιάτες or Mikrasiates, people from Minor Asia.

The Greek genocide (Γενοκτονία των Ελλήνων, Genoktonia ton Ellinon) was the systematic killing of the Greek Christian population of Anatolia or Asia Minor, during World War I and its aftermath (1914-1922).

The wholescale massacre of people and communities was carried out systematically on the basis of religion and ethnicity. It was instigated by the Ottoman government led by the Three Pashas and intensified and systematised by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

The genocide included massacres, forced deportations, death marches, expulsions, summary executions, and the destruction of Greek cultural, historical, and religious monuments. Up to a million Greek people living in the Ottoman Empire and its successor the Turkish Republic were murdered and died in this period.

By late 1922, most Greeks in Asia Minor had either fled or were murdered. The majority of survivors fled as refugees to Greece, adding over a quarter to the population of Greece at the time.

The refugees who arrived in Rethymnon first found shelter in the area now known as Mikrasiaton Square. Many found shelter in the Church of Saint Francis (Agios Franciskos), which had been used as an imaret or poorhouse during the Turkish era; others found homes in outlying villages such as Tsesmes, which takes its name from Cesme, north-west of Smirni (Izmir).

The refugees from Asia Minor integrated quickly into to the local population, bringing with them their arts, crafts and creativity, and actively contributing to the revitalisation of the local economy.

Today, Mikrasiaton Square is an attractive plaza, filled with strolling families, playing children and tourists taking selfies in front of the minaret and domes of the Neratnzes Mosque. There are bikers and skaters too, park benches and attractive restaurants. In pre-pandemic times, this was a popular venue for open air concerts and live music.

Some abandoned buildings might have blighted this square in the past and become typical recipients of graffiti and painted scrawls. But instead, an imaginative initiative has attracted the talents of street artists, adding to the attractions of the square.

The buildings around Mikrasiaton Square include some of the town’s most important buildings from the Venetian and Ottoman periods, such as the House of Culture, the Nerantzes Mosque, the former Venetian Church of Agios Franciskos (Saint Francis), now housing temporary exhibitions of the Archaeological Museum, and the Historical and Folklore Museum of Rethymnon.

The new monument on the east side of Mikrasiaton Square recalls the Asia Minor catastrophe and is an initiative of the descendants of those refugees who arrived in Rethymnon a century ago. It is five meters long and four meters in high, and depicts the horrors of burning homes, death marches, murders and grieving mothers.

The names of the towns in Asia Minor that had sizeable Greek majorities until a century ago are inscribed on the monument, beginning with Symrni, and including Tsesmes, Ephesus, Pergamon, Miletus, Iconium (Konya), and Sardis … many of them Greek-speaking cities long before Saint John wrote from Patmos to the Seven Churches in the Book of Revelation.

Smyrni Street beneath the slopes of the Fortezza in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Before the word genocide came into legal use, the destruction of the Greeks of Asia Minor was known by Greeks as ‘the Massacre’ (η Σφαγή), ‘the Great Catastrophe’ (η Μεγάλη Καταστροφή), or ‘the Great Tragedy’ (η Μεγάλη Τραγωδία).

Ataturk provided a ‘model’ for genocide for the Nazis. Hitler once declared that he regarded himself as a student of Ataturk, and described him as his ‘star in the darkness.’ Ataturk and his new Turkey of 1923 constituted the archetype of the ‘perfect Führer’ and of ‘good national practices’ for Nazism. Nazi propaganda emphasised the ‘Turkish model’ and continuously praised the ‘benefits’ of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

At the height of the Holocaust in World War II, the word ‘genocide’ was coined in 1944 by Raphael Lemkin in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. He formed hybrid word by combining the Greek word γένος (genos, ‘race, people’) and the Latin suffix -caedo (‘act of killing’).

Lemkin was a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent, and in his writings on genocide he detailed the fate of Greeks in Turkey. In August 1946, the New York Times wrote: ‘Genocide is no new phenomenon, nor has it been utterly ignored in the past … The massacres of Greeks and Armenians by the Turks prompted diplomatic action without punishment. If Professor Lemkin has his way, genocide will be established as an international crime.’

Genocide was declared an international crime in international law in 1948. Last week (13 September), Greece marked the 99th anniversary of the ‘Catastrophe of Smyrna’ (Izmir), when Greeks were forced to flee the city when Turkish forces set fire to it. The great fire of Smyrna began on 13 September 1922, and lasted nine full days and nights until 22 September 1922, 99 years ago today.

The monument on Mikrasiaton Square recalls the genocide of the Greeks of Asia Minor (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Yesterday: Hypocrite

Tomorrow: Cinema.

The Pergamon Museum in Berlin is a lesson in the continuity of civilisation

The Aleppo Room in the Pergamon Museum was decorated in the early 17th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

I spent a few hours in the Pergamon Museum on the Museum Island in Berlin yesterday [13 September 2018], one of the largest museums in Germany and one of the most visited.

Over a million visitors visit the Pergamon Museum each year, primarily to see the Ishtar Gate from Babylon, the Market Gate from Miletus, parts of the reconstructed gates from the ancient Assyrian Palace, the façade of the Mshatta Palace and the Aleppo Room.

The museum takes its name from the archaeological collection from Pergamon, including the Pergamon Altar, which has been displayed in the main hall. But this is closed to visitors at present as the museum undergoes a major overhaul.

The Pergamon Museum is divided into three main sectors or independent collections: the Collection of Classical Antiquities, from ancient Greece and Rome; the Museum of the Ancient Near East; and the Museum of Islamic Art.

It is difficult to know whether the acquisition of these collections should be compared, on the one hand with the adventures of some German Indiana Jones or Chester Beatty, or on the other with the plundering and despoliation of the Acropolis in Athens by Lord Elgin.

The Pergamon Museum building was designed by Alfred Messel and Ludwig Hoffmann and was built over a period of 20 years, from 1910 to 1930.

The collection dates back to the Prince-Electors of Brandenburg, and began with the acquisition of the collection by a Roman archaeologist in 1698. Part of it was made accessible to the public when the Altes Museum opened in 1830, and the collection soon grew and expanded with finds sent back from excavations in Olympia, Samos, Pergamon, Priene, Miletus, Didyma, Magnesia and in Egypt and Cyprus.

The origins of the present museum are found in the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, now the Bode-Museum, on Museum Island. By the time that museum opened in 1904, it was clear it was not large enough to host all of the art and archaeological treasures being excavated under German supervision.

At the time, German archaeologists were excavating sites throughout the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. But the objects they sent back to Germany, many on a gargantuan scale, could not be properly displayed adequately in the German museums of the day. Wilhelm von Bode, director of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, decided to build a new museum nearby for these collections.

The Ishtar Gate from Babylon was built during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Messel began designing a large three-wing building in 1906. When he died in 1909, his friend Hoffman took over the project and building began in 1910. Work continued despite World War I (1914-1918) and the economic crisis of the 1920s, and the completed building opened in 1930.

The Pergamon Museum was severely damaged at the end of World War II during the air attacks on Berlin. But many of the displays had been stored for safety places. When the Soviet army arrived in Berlin in 1945, troops collected many items in the museum items. Were they rescuing them looting and fires then raging in Berlin? Or did they see it as war booty?

Most of the objects were returned to East Germany in 1958. But significant parts of remained in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow and the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.

The museum collection is now divided between the Pergamon Museum and the Altes Museum. It includes sculpture from the archaic to Hellenistic ages as well as artwork from Greek and Roman antiquity: architecture, sculptures, inscriptions, mosaics, bronzes, jewellery and pottery.

The Gate of Miletus was built in Western Anatolia ca 100 AD (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The main exhibits are the Pergamon Altar from the 2nd century BC, with a 113-metre long sculptural frieze depicting the struggle of the gods and the giants, and the Gate of Miletus from Roman antiquity.

As Germany was divided following World War II, so was the collection. The Pergamon Museum reopened in 1959 in East Berlin, while what remained in West Berlin was displayed in Schloss Charlottenburg.

The Ancient and Near East Collection displays objects found by German archaeologists and others as they carried out digs in sites from Assyrian, Sumerian and Babylonian culture.

The main display in this collection is the Ishtar Gate from Babylon and the Processional Way that leads to it. They were built during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BCE). Original glazed bricks decorate both the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way.

A winged guardian from the Palace of the Kings of Assyria, dating from the 13th to ninth centuries BC (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The reconstructed throne room and palace interior from the Kingdom of Assyria dates from the 13th to ninth centuries BC.

The Market Gate from Miletus in western Anatolia, dates from ca 100 AD and is over 16 metres high.

In addition, there are historical buildings, reliefs and lesser cultural objects and jewellery.

The Bode-Museum on Museum Island in Berlin was designed by Ernst von Ihne and opened in 1904 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

When the Bode Museum opened in 1904, a section for Islamic art was created, but this was later included in the Pergamon Museum in 1950. This collection includes Islamic artwork from the eighth to 19th centuries, from Spain to India.

The main attraction in this section is the Mshatta Façade. It comes from an unfinished early desert palace south of Amman in present-day Jordan and dates from 744 AD. It was a gift from the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II to Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany in 1903. Parts of the eastern part of the façade are still in Jordan, as wells as the rest of the ruins of the building.

The Aleppo Room forms a separate display in the area. This is a richly-decorated reception room from a Christian broker’s home in the Syrian city of Aleppo, and dates from ca 1601-1603.

Other objects from the Islamic world include carpets, textiles, illuminated manuscripts, book bindings, ceramics, metalware and rock crystal objects, there is mihrab from Konya, the Sufi centre in southern Anatolia, and a niche from a Samaritan home in the Middle East.

A plan to develop Museum Island includes an expansion of the Pergamon Museum, with connections to the Neues Museum, Bodemuseum, Alte Nationalgalerie and a new visitor centre, the James Simon Gallery.

The Pergamon Museum will be redeveloped which means parts of the museum have been closed for the past four years, including the hall with the Pergamon Altar. Initially the reopening was planned for next year [2019], but it may not be finished until 2023.

One of the strong themes throughout the museum is the thread of continuity through all these civilisations. There is no one fixed time when the classical world comes to an end and the Byzantine world begins, and there is a sense of continuity between classical civilisation, the Byzantine world and Islamic culture.

In many ways, the people who assembled these collections must also have been claiming a place in the continuity of civilisation for Germany at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. What went wrong then that some people in Germany within decades could lose that sense of continuity and try to forge a sense of superiority?

With the current crisis in Syria, one wonders whether the Aleppo Room would ever have survived intact, and with the behaviour of Isis in Palmyra and other parts of the Middle East, I wondered whether the reconstructed exhibits from Babylon, Assyria and other places would still be there to see today.

Is the Pergamon Museum the safest place for many of these objects today?

And why is the Pergamon Museum not as controversial as the British Museum and the retention of the Parthenon ‘Marbles’ in London?

Perhaps the answer is quite simple: there is a world of difference between Aleppo and Athens. But the Pergamon Museum challenges us not to think in terms of linear time, and certainly not to think of time in terms of mere centuries. Who knows what will separate Athens from Aleppo in centuries in come?

The Mshatta Façade comes from an unfinished desert palace south of Amman and dates from 744 AD (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

‘This is he whom seers and sages sang of old with one accord’ … the Sibyls in an Athlone window

The Seven Sybils in the Virgin Mary window (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

My discussion of the stained-glass windows from the Harry Clarke Studio in the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Athlone last week [16 August 2018] attracted considerable attention and discussion.

But in recent days I also found I was reflecting on the symbolism of the Sibyls, portrayed vividly in the panels in the bottom right corner of the Virgin Mary window by Richard King, Clarke’s pupil.

Who were the sibyls? What did they symbolise? And why did King give them such an important place, contrasting one of the sibyls he portrays with an image of beautiful, elongated figure of the Virgin Mary?

The Song of the Sibyls was sung all over Europe on Christmas Eve, after Matins and before Mass, until the Council of Trent. This custom was restored in some places in the 17th century, and remains mostly in Spain. They are most famously mentioned in the Dies Irae, sung at Masses for the dead. Its opening lines say:

That day of wrath, that dreadful day,
shall heaven and earth in ashes lay,
as David and the Sybil say.

They are also referred to the Latin poem Corde natus ex Parentis by the Roman poet Marcus Aurelius Prudentius (ca 343-413), a judge in the Roman imperial court, as a challenge to Arianism:

This is he, whom seer and sibyl
Sang in ages long gone by;
This is he of old revealed
In the page of prophecy;
Lo! He comes the promised Saviour;
Let the world his praises cry!
Evermore and evermore.

This poem became a popular hymn and Christmas carol, ‘Of the Father’s Heart Begotten’ or ‘Of the Father’s Love Begotten,’ when it was translated y the Revd John Mason Neale (1818-1866) and the Revd Sir Henry Williams Baker (1821-1877). It is the oldest hymn in the Church Hymnal of the Church of Ireland (No 175). However, in their translation, Neale and Baker altered the reference to sibyls to sages:

This is he whom seers and sages
sang of old with one accord,
whom the writings of the prophets
promised in their faithful word:
now he shines, the long expected,
let creation praise its Lord,
evermore and evermore.

The Sibyls, who varied in number from 10 to 12, were women believed by the ancient Greeks to be oracles and prophesied at holy sites. Six are named in this window as Cumaa (the Cumaean sibyl), Delphica (the Delphic sibyl), Samia (the sibyl of Samos), Libica (the Libyan sibyl), Tyburina (the Tiburtine Sibyl), and Persica (the Persian sibyl). The Persian sybil on the right is stepping on a serpent, drawing on a popular description in Catholic piety of the Virgin Mary portrayed in the next panel as the ‘second Eve,’ crushing the serpent beneath her feet (see Genesis 3: 15).
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The ancient Greeks believed the sibyls were oracles. The earliest sibyls, according to legend, prophesied at holy sites. Their prophecies were influenced by divine inspiration from a deity. At first, they were found at Delphi and Pessinos, but by late antiquity we find accounts of sibyls in Greece, Italy, the Levant, and Asia Minor.

The English word sibyl comes through the Old French sibile, and in turn the Latin sibylla, from the ancient Greek Σίβυλλα (Sibulla).

Heraclitus, writing in the 5th century BC, is the first known Greek writer to mention a sibyl, when he says, ‘The Sibyl, with frenzied mouth uttering things not to be laughed at, unadorned and unperfumed, yet reaches to a thousand years with her voice by aid of the god.’

In his Description of Greece in the second century AD, Pausanias says the first sibyl was at Delphi, that she was of great antiquity, and that she was given the name ‘sibyl’ by the Libyans. He names the second sibyl as ‘Herophile,’ who was based in Samos, but who also visited other shrines, including the shrines at Delphi and Delos.

In his six-volume translation and commentary on Pausanias, James Frazer says only two of the Greek sibyls were historical: Herophile of Erythrae, thought to have lived in the 8th century BC, and Phyto of Samos, who lived later. He says Heraclides Ponticus (387-312 BC) was the first ancient writer to distinguish several sibyls, including the Phrygian, Erythraean, and Hellespontine sibyls.

Like Heraclitus, Plato speaks of only one sibyl, but over the course of time their number increased to nine, with a tenth, the Tiburtine Sibyl, probably Etruscan in origin, added by the Romans.

By the first century BC, the Sibyls were numbered as ten: the Persian, Libyan, Delphic, Cimmerian, Erythraean, Samian, Cumaean, Hellespontine, the Phrygian and Tiburtine sibyls.

Among Christians, sibyls were regarded as pagans yet when their prophecies coincided with those of biblical prophets their words tended to be acknowledged. The belief that Christ came for everyone – gentiles as well as Jews – led early Christians to interpret particular prophecies as signs, even when they were from non-Christian sources.

Michelangelo depicts five sibyls intermingled with Old Testament prophets on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican: the Persian, Erythraean, Delphic, Cumaean and Libyan sibyls.

Shakespeare refers to the sibyls in his plays, including Othello, Titus Andronicus, The Merchant of Venice, and especially Troilus and Cressida.

The Christian apologist, Lactantius, writing in the late third or early fourth century lists ten Sibyls. Of these, six are depicted in the church windows in Athlone are: Cumaa, the Cumaean sibyl; Delphica, the Delphic sibyl; Samia, the sibyl of Samos; Libica, the Libyan sibyl; Tyburina, the Tiburtine sibyl; and Persica, the Persian sibyl.

Who were they? And why were they chosen to complement the prophets in the other corner of this window?

The River Tiber between Rome and the Vatican … the Cumaean Sibyl was said to have sold the original Sibylline books to Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2017)

1, The Cumaean Sibyl:

The Cumaean Sibyl was the sibyl who most concerned the Romans and was located near the Greek city of Naples. In Virgil’s Aeneid, Aeneas consults her before his descent to the lower world.

In Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue, the Cumaean Sibyl foretells the coming of a saviour. This may have been a flattering reference to the poet’s patron, Augustus, but Christian writers later identified this saviour as Christ. She was said to have sold the original Sibylline books to Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome.

2, The Delphic Sibyl:

Delphi and the ruins of the Temple of Apollo … the Delphic Sibyl was part of the cult of Apollo (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In Greek mythology, Gaia or mother earth assigned a very large serpent called Python (Πύθων) to guard the shrine at Delphi. The shrine’s location was believed to be the Omphalos, the navel of the earth.

This python was slain by Apollo (Ἀπόλλων), who claimed the shrine as his own. And so Python became one of the names of Apollo, the Greek god of light and the sun, the fine arts, music, poetry, medicine, eloquence and prophecy, the patron of shepherds and the guardian of truth. He is the son of Zeus, and in Greek mythology he dies and rises again.

The celebrated oracle at Delphi, the priestess of Apollo, was said to be inspired by Apollo. She became violently agitated during the periods of supposed inspiration and gave responses about the future that were regarded as the oracles of the god.

The prophetesses at Apollo’s shrine were called Pythia. The Delphic Sibyl was a mythical woman from before the Trojan Wars in the 11th century BC. She is mentioned by Pausanias, who recalls stories he heard about her in Delphi. He said she survived nine generations of men, and that after her death she became a wandering voice, bringing to the ears of men tidings of the future wrapped in dark riddles.

The Acts of the Apostles recalls how in Asia Minor Saint Paul encounters a fortune telling slave girl who is described as having ‘a spirit of Python’ (εχουσαν πνευμα πυθωνος, she ‘has the spirit of Python’). This is translated in the NRSV and the KJV as merely ‘a spirit of divination’ and in the NIV as simply ‘a spirit’; the New Jerusalem Bible says she was ‘a slave-girl who was a soothsayer.’ But the original New Testament Greek serves to compare her with the Sibyl of Delphi, and makes her part of the rituals associated with the cult of Apollo.

Saint Paul is challenging the cult of Apollo and turning a sibyl into a Christian prophet. The encounter leads to Paul and Silas being held in prison (see Acts 16: 16-40).

3, The Samian Sibyl:

The Lion Monument in Pythagoras Square in Vathy, the capital of Samos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Samian Sibyl presided over the Apollonian oracle near the Temple of Hera on the island of Samos. She is said to have prophesied the birth of Jesus in the stable. The Samian Sibyl had the name Phemonoe.

The Samian Sibyl was known as Phyto, or Foito, from the Greek world foitos, which indicates wandering, especially the wandering of the mind. Modern research suggests her home was in the cave of the Panagia Spiliani monastery which was probably also the cavern of Pythagoras.

Saint John’s concept of the cosmos can be traced to the original thinking of Pythagoras. But legends aside, we can be sure Samos was visited by the Apostle Paul around 58 AD. Ever since, the island has had a rich heritage of churches, monasteries and convents. Four years after the island was resettled by Greeks in the 16th century, two monks, Iocovos and Makarios, built the Monastery of the Panayia of Vrontiani, or Our Lady of Thunder, the oldest monastery on the island, 3 km from the village of Vourliotes. The Monastery of Our Lady of Spiliani was built over the cave that was once the home of the Samian oracle Photo, while pillars from the classical city of Miletus in Anatolia were used to build Aghia Zoni, which has outstanding wall paintings.

4, The Libyan Sibyl:

The statue of Alexander the Great by the seafront in Thessaloniki … he consulted the Libyan Sibyl after his conquest of Egypt (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The Libyan Sibyl was identified with prophetic priestess presiding over the oracle of Zeus Amon at the Siwa Oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt. The oracle there was consulted by Alexander the Great after his conquest of Egypt.

Euripides mentions the Libyan Sibyl in the prologue to his lost tragedy Lamia. The mother of the Libyan Sibyl was said to be Lamia, daughter of Poseidon. But the name Lamia also means Serpent or Medusa.

The head of Medusa at Didyma … Euripides mentions the Libyan Sibyl in the prologue to his lost tragedy ‘Lamia’ and the name Lamia means Medusa (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

5, The Tiburtine Sibyl:

To the classical sibyls of the Greeks, the Romans added a tenth, the Tiburtine Sibyl, whose seat was at Tibur, modern Tivoli. The mythic meeting of Augustus with the Sibyl was a favourite motif of Christian artists, although it is not clear whether the sibyl in question was the Sibyl of Tibur or the Greek Sibyl of Cumae.

An apocalyptic pseudo-prophecy, attributed to the Tiburtine Sibyl, purports to prophesy the advent of a final emperor named Constans, vanquishing the foes of Christianity, bringing about a period of great wealth and peace, ending paganism and converting the Jews.

The Basilica of Santa Maria in Ara Coeli in Rome is associated with this Sibyl. A mediaeval tradition refers the origin of its name to an altar, Ara Primogeniti Dei, said to have been raised to the ‘firstborn of God’ by the Emperor Augustus, who had been warned of his advent by the sibylline books. The figures of Augustus and the Tiburtine Sibyl are painted on either side of the arch above the high altar in the church.

Ippolito d’Este rebuilt the Villa d’Este at Tibur, the modern Tivoli, from 1550, and commissioned elaborate frescoes in the villa that celebrate the Tiburtine Sibyl as prophesying the birth of Christ to the classical world.

6, The Persian Sibyl

The Persian Sibyl was said to be a prophetic priestess presiding over the Apollonian Oracle. Although her location was so vague enough that she was also known as the ‘Babylonian Sibyl,’ the Persian Sibyl is said to have foretold the exploits of Alexander the Great.

When Pausanias visits Delphi, he counts four sibyls, and mentions the ‘Hebrew Sibyl,’ who was ‘brought up in Palestine named Sabbe, whose father was Berosus and her mother Erymanthe. Some say she was a Babylonian, while others call her an Egyptian Sibyl.’

The 10th century Byzantine encyclopaedia, the Suda (Σοῦδα), says the Hebrew Sibyl is the author of the Sibylline oracles.

The Temple of Apollo in Didyma ... one of the most important shrines and temples in the classical world to Apollo and his twin sister Artemis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Four other sibyls not depicted in King’s window in Athlone are traditionally named in classical literature:

1, The Cimmerian Sibyl:

The name of the Cimmerian Sibyl was Carmenis. She presided over the Apollonian Oracle at Cimmerium in Italy, near Lake Avernus or Cumae. She may have been omitted from the Athlone window by King because many writers say she is the same as or confuse her with the Cumaean Sybil, since the designation Cimmerian refers to priestesses who lived underground near Lake Avernus.

As at Delphi, there was an oracular shrine dedicated to Apollo at the Acropolis of Cumae.

2, The Hellespontine Sibyl:

The Hellespontine or Trojan Sibyl presided over the oracle of Apollo at Dardania. She was born in the village of Marpessus, near Gergis, during the lifetimes of Solon of Athens and Cyrus the Great.

According to Xenophon, Gergis was a place of much strength. It had a temple sacred to Apollo Gergithius, and was said to have given birth to the sibyl, who is sometimes called Erythraea, ‘from Erythrae,’ a small place on Mount Ida

The Hellespontine Sibyl was known, particularly in the late Roman imperial period and the early Middle Ages, for a claim that she had predicted the crucifixion of Christ.

3, The Phrygian Sibyl:

The Phrygian Sibyl is best known for being conflated with Cassandra, Priam’s daughter in Homer’s Iliad.

The Phrygian Sibyl also appears to be a doublet of the Hellespontine Sibyl.

4, The Erythraean Sibyl:

The Erythraean Sibyl was based at Erythrae, a town on the Ionian coast of Asia Minor, across from the island of Chios. She may have been omitted from the Athlone window because the Suidas lexicon says the Erythraean Sibyl was also called Samian, and Pausanias confirms that the Erythraean Sibyl lived the greater part of her life in Samos.

Yet, she is the most interesting of the Sibyls when it comes to Christian prophecies. She is said to have predicted the Trojan War and to have prophesied to the Greeks who were moving against Ilium both that Troy would be destroyed and that Homer would write falsehoods. The word acrostic was first applied to the prophecies of the Erythraean Sibyl, written on leaves and arranged so that the initial letters of the leaves always formed a word.

Later, in Christian iconography, the Erythraean Sibyl is said to have foretold the coming of Christ in a prophesy in the form of an acrostic whose initial letters spelled out: Ιησόύς Χριστός Θεου Ύίος Σωτηρ Σταύρος (‘Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Saviour, Cross). She is shown with this acrostic in a mediaeval painting in Salisbury Cathedral and by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.

The shape of the statue of Pythagoras by Nikolaos Ikaris in Pythagoreio … Pausanias says the Erythraean Sibyl lived the greater part of her life in Samos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

62 places this average Anglican can return to at the age of 62

The bleak mid-winter … trees outside my house in Knocklyon earlier this month. But where is home? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

In a Guardian blog posting last weekend, Andrew Brown, who also writes for the Church Times and who is a shrewd and insightful analyst of religious affairs in general and Anglicanism in particular, pointed out the “the demographics of the Church of England mean that even staying still is a recipe for future catastrophe: the average age of congregations is now 62 …”

Now that I am 62, I suppose I have become a very average Anglican. What a delightful realisation.

I thought of marking my 62nd birthday on this blog by looking at 62 of my favourite churches … all average, but nevertheless delightful. Or looking back on 62 favourite beach walks, 62 favourite river-side walks, 62 beautiful islands I have visited … instead I have decided to share 62 places that I have enjoyed visiting or living in over the past 62 years.

Some I have lived in; others I have visited only briefly … or perhaps only once. But this morning these 62 places are to the forefront of those cells in my brain involved in recollection, and recollection with pleasure.

An Irish comedian jokes about the difference between a house and a home: “A house is where you live; a home is where your children put you in old age.” There is a popular American saying “Home is where your story begins.” But home is also where your heart returns.

Some of these places have been involved in beginning parts of my story, and so have been home to me in different ways. Home includes my grandmother’s farm outside Cappoquin, where my first memories still reside; home is Lichfield where my faith was first given an adult expression; home is Wexford where I matured in my early 20s and realised my place with others; home is where I live today, with family and with hope for the future.

This morning, my memories return to many places, even when they have not been home, with thoughts and prayers of thanksgiving.

Ten places in Ireland:

Rathfarnham, Dublin:

Sunset seen through the trees above the River Dodder in Rathfarnham (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I was born on Rathfarnham Road, in a terrace of houses between Terenure Laundry and Terenure Synagogue. Later, I lived briefly with my foster parents on Rathfarnham Road, and my parents later moved to Rathfarnham Wood. I often enjoy walks along the banks of the River Dodder, between where I work and where I live. I suppose if there is any part of Dublin that I might be from, then Rathfarnham, between where I work and where I live, might symbolise that.

Cappoquin, Co Waterford:

Cappoquin’s Main Street … little has changed here since my childhood (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

My earliest memories are staying on grandmother’s farm outside Cappoquin. The farm has long been sold, but I still find myself in Cappoquin every year or every second year. And when I walk around its streets, little has changed from the Cappoquin of my childhood that I can walk around in my sleep.

Wexford Town:

A winter afternoon shrouded in mist on the quays in Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Wexford People, in the days of Austin Channing and Gerry Breen, gave me my first salaried position as a journalist. I felt at home in Wexford immediately, and lived there in the early 1970s, first of all in School Street, then in High Street, and for a while in Rosslare Strand. I got involved in parish life, Wexford YMCA, the Labour Party, Wexford Wanderers Rugby Club, poetry readings, and much more. I was very conscious of family roots in Wexford, and that may have helped. If home in the Irish sense is which county you want to win the next All-Ireland Hurling Final, then I still hold out hopes for the Wexford Hurlers.

Achill Island, Co Mayo:

Dugort beach … Achill on a summer’s day is like an Aegean island in the sun (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I first visited Achill in 1974, and have returned again and again. It is a haven, especially when I want a quiet place to read and to think. Quiet places are good places for thinking, especially when you need to think out loud, and the beach in Dugort is one of those places.

Bettystown and Laytown, Co Meath:

The beach at Bettystown in late evening lights (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Looking back on my childhood, it seems my father wanted a place each summer that would allow him to commute into work each day, and to return to play golf in the evening. This accounts for long summer holidays in my childhood in Kilcoole, Co Wicklow, Bettystown and Laytown, Co Meath, Termonfeckin, Co Louth, and Virginia, Co Cavan. They were also close to Gormanston, where two of us were at school. I still return to Bettystown as one of my favourite places for walking on the beach, especially in the depths of winter.

Kilkenny City:

A glimpse into the past … Rothe House in Parliament Street, Kilkenny (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I hope to be back in Kilkenny next month for the Dublin and Glendalough Clergy Conference, and last year I must have been there on 10 or or more occasions …. for book launches, lectures, board meetings, cathedral concerts, or simply just for the pleasure of it. If I lived there, you would have to peel me out of the place in order to get me to leave.

Portrane and Donabate, Co Dublin:

A bright winter sunset at Balcarrick Beach in Donabate this winter (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

My grandparents were married in Donabate, and are buried in Portrane. I still have cousins living on this peninsula, and I help out once a year at a second-hand book stall raising funds for a charity working in Romania and Albania. The beaches in this tiny corner of Fingal draw me back again and again.

Skerries, Co Dublin:

Darkness closes in on the harbour in Skerries earlier this month (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

When I was moving house in the mid-1990s, it was a question of whether to live by the sea or by the mountains. I thought of Skerries, but ended up in Knocklyon; however, the M50 has been completed since then, and Skerries is only 40 minutes away these days. I have provided cover during the vacancy in Holmpatrick Parish, written for Skerries News, brought the facilitators at the Anglican Primates’ meeting here for dinner, and organised retreats with the sailing club as a venue. I enjoy walking the two beaches, and along the harbour, at least once a month, and Skerries has an array of delightful cafés and restaurants.

Drogheda, Co Louth:

Looking along Laurence Street towards Laurence’s Gate and Chord Road in Drogheda (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

During my school days in Gormanston, I enjoyed many Saturday afternoons in Drogheda, and the town holds many happy memories from my days as a teenager. Many of those memories bubbled up in a very gentle way when I was in Drogheda with a group of students last weekend.

Bunclody, Co Wexford:

Bunclody on the banks of the River Clody and River Slaney … once known as Newtownbarry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

My grandfather’s family came from Bunclody, and generations of the Comerford family are buried outside the village in Old Kilymshall and Templeshanbo. The family moved across the Blackstairs Mountain from Co Kilkenny to this part of Co Wexford in the 18th century. Bunclody is a pretty place on the banks of the River Clody and the River Slaney, and one of my favourite stretches of river is along the banks of the Slaney from Bunclody down to Wexford. Canon Norrie Ruddock is buried in a small churchyard on the banks of this stretch of the Slaney; from the time he was 20, he was persistent in encouraging me to conisdre ordained ministry, and before he died he entrusted me with his Home Communion set, with a long list of those who had used it over the generations … a true sign of apostolic succession.

Ten places in England:

Lichfield, Staffordshire:

Evening lights at Stowe Pool and Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

If home is where life stories begin, continue and end, then I still feel at home in Lichfield. I first came here in 1970 in search of family roots, and soon became a freelance contributor to the Lichfield Mercury. My adult faith had a wonderful beginning in the chapel of Saint John’s Hospital on a Thursday afternoon in 1971, and my vocation to ordained ministry began to find expression attending Evensong in Lichfield Cathedral that evening. It is a true pleasure to still have friends here; I return two or three times a year as a pilgrim or on retreat to say thank you, and I contribute occasionally to the Lichfield Gazette.

Comberford, Staffordshire:

The sign at the entrance to Comberford Village in Staffordshire

Although the family tree became jumbled at one stage, I first stayed in Lichfield because I was visiting Comberford, following my great-grandfather’s search for the family roots shortly before his death in 1902. I once imagined Comberford Hall would be an ideal retreat centre, with the village church close-by, across the fields. Comberford Hall has been sold, yet again, in recent months, and the church Comberford village closed at the end of last year. The dream may have come to an end, but this is still one of the charming places I like to identify with.

Cambridge:

Cloister Court in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in the snow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Since 2008, I have stayed each year in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, studying patristics on modules with the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies. I was also invited by the Revd Peter Waddell to preach in the college chapel two years ago, when Cambridge was covered in a blanket of snow. A few years earlier, I was invited to preach in the chapel of Christ’s College by the Revd Christopher Woods. Most tourists spend just a day or two in Cambridge, looking at the Chapel in King’s College and perhaps hiring a punt along the Backs. In the last few years, I have been allowed to get to know Cambridge from the perspective of both the student and the academic, and I now enjoy an intimate acquaintance with its side streets, college courts and chapels, and the walks by the Backs and the Cam, and when I’m there I feel at home at the quiet Eucharist each weekday morning in Saint Bene’t’s Church around the corner from Sidney Sussex.

Quemerford, Wiltshire:

A glass of wine beneath a spreading tree on the lawns behind the Talbot Inn in Quemerford, Wiltshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

I first got to know Quemerford in my search for family stories and roots. It’s no longer a village but part of the neighbouring town of Calne. But it is a quiet, friendly and welcoming place.

Coventry:

The Cross of Nails in Coventry Cathedral (Photograph; Patrick Comerford)

The chapel in Gormanston is a mini-replica of Coventry Cathedral, which is perhaps the most architecturally-influential church built in the post-World War II decades. I was strongly influenced in the 1970s by the Ministry of Reconciliation at Coventry Cathedral and the work of the Community of the Cross of Nails, as well as the Lifestyle Movement founded in 1972 by Horace Dammers, when he was a residentiary canon and the Director of Studies at Coventry Cathedral (1965-1973).

Calne, Wiltshire:

The Tounson Almshouses,dating from 1682, and Saint Mary’s Church in Calne (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

When I have visited Quemerford, I have stayed at the White Hart Inn in Calne, an old coaching inn that dates back to the mid-17th century. The M4 now bypasses Calne, and this and the closure of the bacon family have restored a charming atmosphere to Calne, between Chippenham and Marlborough in North Wiltshire. This is one of Wiltshire’s oldest market towns, and the White Hart is set on the corner of the Green, close to Joseph Priestly’s house. My favourite room may even be older than the rest of the village and date back to the 16th century. It looks out onto the cobbled courtyard, which opens out onto the Green.

Oxford:

The spires of All Souls’ College … Matthew Arnold first named Oxford the “city of dreaming spires” in 1865 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A cousin by marriage once claimed in the early 1970s that he had pleasure in a student prank walking the length of a cinema queue for Love Story in Oxford, telling everyone: “He dies in the end.” TS Eliot wrote famously: “Oxford is very pretty, but I don’t like to be dead.” I was back in Oxford most recently at the end of October, visiting Ripon College Cuddesdon and Wycliffe Hall. For me, Oxford is still the “city of dreaming spires,” a term coined by the English poet Matthew Arnold in 1865. In his poem Thyrsis, he describes the view of Oxford from Boars Hill:

And that sweet city with her dreaming spires,
She needs not June for beauty’s heightening
Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night!

Tolleshunt Knights, Essex:

Looking out on the world … in the original chapel in the Old Rectory in the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Each year, while I am part of the course at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, I have spent a quiet day at the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights, Essex. This is a mixed monastic community of men and women, and is warmly welcoming to Christians of all traditions. The monastery is built around a former Church of England rectory, and plays an important role in ecumenical dialogue.

Tamworth, Staffordshire:

The Moat House … a Jacobean gem in the heart of Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Much of the old town centre of Tamworth was destroyed in the building frenzies of the 1960s. It was a tragic mistake, and looking at the old photographs collected by local journalist and historian John Harper it might otherwise have been as charming as neighbouring Lichfield. Apart from the castle, some of the oldest and most historic buildings in the town include Saint Editha’s parish church, which includes some important Pre-Raphaelite windows and the Comberford Chapel, and the Moat House, a Jacobean-era town house on the banks of the River Tam, built by the Comberford family.

Saffron Walden, Essex:

A pretty, picture-postcard, market town, with colourful timber-framed and gabled town houses and cottages (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saffron Walden is a pretty, picture-postcard, market town in Essex, with colourful timber-framed and gabled town houses and cottages. Similar architectural charm can be found in neighbouring Bishop’s Stortford. Both towns are close to Stansted Airport, but I wonder how many Ryanair passengers arriving from Ireland stop to enjoy the charms of either town.

Ten places in Greece:

Rethymnon, Crete:

At the harbour in Rethymnon in evening at the end of summer last year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

I have been a regular visitor to Rethymnon for the past four decades. It remains my favourite town in Greece, with its mixture of Venetian and Ottoman architecture, its charming narrow streets lined with the tables of restaurants and tavernas, and its rich cultural life. If I ever decided to live in Greece, this would be my first choice for a home.

Thessaloniki:

The White Tower is a symbol of Thessaloniki (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I had visited Thessaloniki many times as a journalist and had felt at home here long before I realised that my grandfather had caught malaria here during World War I, and had been invalided home. I returned again in 2011 to retrace his steps, and wondered was that why I had felt so at ease in Greece’s second city.

Athens:

Tourist sites such as the Acropolis have been closed by recent protests (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

My first visit to Athens in the 1980s was funded with part of a legacy from an uncle, my father’s half-brother. I returned again and again while I was a journalist with The Irish Times and have returned many times since. Each time I visit Athens, I place flowers on the grave of Sir Richard Church, an Irish general and Greek senator who was involved in Greece’s struggle for independence.

Mount Athos:

The Monastery of Vatopedi on Mount Athos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

One year, friends in the Greek Press Office and Ministry of Information arranged for me to spend Orthodox Easter in the monastery of Vatopedi on Mount Athos. It was an unforgettable experience. I felt honoured to have been welcomed as a priest by the abbot, and was made welcome at all the liturgical celebrations. As I left, I was told to remember always that this is my monastery.

Corfu:

The convent on the small islet of Vlahérna stands on a small islet off the coast of Corfu (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I was invited to give a paper in Corfu some years ago on Irish figures involved in the Greek War of Independence in the early 19th century. The cheapest and most direct way to get to Corfu was to book a package holiday, and forego the accommodation. Some of the package-holiday people on the same flight were amused at what I was doing: “There can’t be much demand for teaching early 19th century Greek history in Dublin,” I was told. “No wonder you have to go to Greece to work.”

The small white-washed convent on the tiny islet of Vlahérna, 2 km south of Corfu town and joined to the island by a narrow causeway, is one of the most photographed place in Greece, featuring in almost every guide book. When I visited it, I was surprised it was so small despite having so many visitors.

Rhodes:

The harbour in Rhodes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I first visited Rhodes at the height of the Greek-Turkish crisis over the rocky islets of Imia (Limnia) in 1996. I later returned for family holidays, and have also visited Rhodes while I was on holidays in Turkey. One year, when I was taking part in a conference on the small, off-shore island of Chalki, I brought a number of other academics and journalists back to Rhodes to meet some Muslim families in the old town, who spoke informatively about life as Muslims in Greece. The group aptly called themselves the “Rhodes Scholars.”

I have also visited the old Jewish quarter in Rhodes, and written about the horrific experiences of the Jews of Rhodes during World War II. I hope my sons will remember that they have been welcomed to pray in a synagogue by an old woman who survived Auschwitz. I am conscious this morning that today [26 January 2014] is World Holocaust Day.

Iraklion:

Looking across Iraklion and out to the Mediterranean from the gave of Nikos Kazantzakis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Iraklion is a gutsy, sometimes gritty, working city in Crete. Too many Irish holiday-makers and tourists pass through Iraklion on their way to sun, sand and sea, without giving it any regard. But this is the city of El Greco and Nikos Kazantzakis, with fine Venetian and Ottoman remains, and once a centre of Byzantine iconography. I climbed the bastion last summer to visit the grave of Kazantzakis once again, in a day that also included meals with friends and a visit to an art exhibition in the former Saint Mark’s Basilica.

Arkadi, Crete:

The entrance to the refectory, where many of the people sought refuge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

High on a plateau in the mountains above Rethymnon, the Monastery of Arkadi is a symbol of Greek resistance and independence. It dates back to at least the 16th century, and the monastery played an active role in the Cretan resistance. In 1866, 943 Greeks, mostly women and children, sought refuge in the monastery. After three days of battle and under orders from the abbot, they blew up barrels of gunpowder, choosing to sacrifice their own lives rather than surrender. Today, this monastery is an oasis of peace away from the busy resorts.

Samos:

Fishermen taking care of their nets in the fishing harbour at Pythagoreio on the island of Samos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Samos is the island of Pythagoras, the philosopher and mathematician who gave us the concept of the cosmos. I have visited Samos four or five times while I was staying in western Turkey. It may not be the place where the whole cosmos comes together, but at least Greeks and Turks come together there.

Kastellorizo:

The small island of Kastellorizo is the setting for the 1991 Italian movie Mediterraneo (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I could have chosen so many other Greek islands I have visited over the years: Kos, Kalymnos, Patmos, Symi, Leros, Santorini, Pserimos, Kephallonia, Chalki, Zakynthos, Ithaki, Vlahérna, Lipsi, Leros ... but Kastellorizo must be the most remote of them all, half-way between Rhodes and Antalya, and the only way I could get there was on a small boat from the southern Turkish port of Kas. The 1991 Oscar-winning movie Mediterraneo, by Gabriele Salvatores, is set on the island.

Ten places in Turkey:

Istanbul:

The great Church of Aghia Sophia has been turned into a mosque and is now a museum

When I first stopped in Istanbul I was sorry I did not get to see the city. But I have since returned to Istanbul … Byzantium, Constantinople … three cities in one, and was delighted to visit so many places at the heart of Church history and at the heart of the Byzantine and Ottoman civilisations.

Ephesus:

The Library of Celsus in Ephesus, one of the great libraries of the Classical world (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Strolling through the streets of classical Ephesus on a hot summer’s day, I heard a tourist exclaim: “Oh there’s the Library of Celsius.” Well it was hot summer day. And she did take delight in the sight that appeared before her.

Smyrna

The ruins in the Agora are all that remain of classical Smyrna in Izmir today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

One day, while I was staying in Kusadasi, I caught the bus to Izmir to see what survives of a once-thriving Greek city. I was horrified years ago by the frightening newsreel from the 1920s of the wholesale destruction of this city by Ataturk's forces, and the slaughter of the Greek and Armenian population. Nothing has survived, and the former Greek and Armenian quarters have been levelled, replaced by modern offices, shops, factories and housing, and by a park. No monument marks the old quarters, no signs tell the stories of their people. Smyrna is one of the seven Churches in the Book of Revelation, but all that survives from the Classical and Hellenistic periods is the the ruined agora and its stoa.

Sirinçe:

Sirinçe is a peaceful village nestling in the mountains above Selçuk and Ephesus (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I once spent a pleasant day in Sirinçe, a peaceful village nestling in the mountains above Selçuk and Ephesus, about 30km from Kusadasi. It was once a Greek-speaking town, but the people were forced to leave in the 1920s, and today it is a village of only 600 people. The Greek author Dido Sotiriou tells the story of the village in her novel Bloodied Land (1962), drawing on her memories of her childhood in Kirkindje — then a prosperous town of over 1,000 Greek households.

Kaya Köyü (Levessi):

The villagers of Levessi were forced to abandon their homes in 1923 … the ruins stand as a witness to a sad time in the history of Europe (Patrick Comerford)

It is a sad fact that – despite the war between Greece and Turkey between 1919 and 1922 – the people of Levessi or Karmylassos had always been good neighbours to one another, with some exceptional cases of intermarriage. Their lives inspired Louis de Bernières in 2003 when he wrote Birds Without Wings, his prequel to Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, where the village of Levessi is thinly disguised as Eskibahçe. Sitting at dinner in Istanbul restaurant in the modern village of Kaya Köyü, below the hills on which the ruined village still sits, I have watched the fading lights of the evening, and sadly contemplated the reality that no lights are coming on in the houses and shops in Levessi. But one Sunday, I quietly celebrated the Eucharist inside the ruins of the Basilica of the Panayia Pirgiotissa (Παναγια Πυργιώτισσα), built as recently as 1888.

Later, outside, some light bells jingling announced the arrival of two tourists on a pair of camels, accompanied by a baby camel. As they strolled by, I was reminded of Rose Macaulay’s account of the travels of the eccentric Aunt Dot (Dorothea ffoulkes-Corbett), Laurie, and Father Hugh Chantry-Pigg through Turkey on her camel and those opening lines in that very Anglican novel, The Towers of Trebizond:

“Take my camel, dear,” said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.

Fethiye:

Fishing boats and tourist boats by night in the harbour in Fethiye, south-west Turkey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Modern Fethiye (Μάκρη, Makri) stands on the site of the ancient city of Telmessos. The surviving ruins of the classical city include the Hellenistic theatre near the port. But the most breath-taking sights are the remaining Lycian tombs, scattered through the streets of the city. The most dramatic of these is the massive Tomb of Amyntas, carved into the cliff-face above the city.

Miletus:

The theatre at Miletus … after it was enlarged in the Roman period it could hold 25,000 people (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Saint Paul said his farewell to the elders of Ephesus in the port of Miletus. The port has long been silted up, but it is still possible to see its outline and to imagine how important this was as a city. The theatre of Miletus is a reminder that this part of Anatolia was at the heart of the Hellenistic and Classical world.

Didyma:

The head of Medusa at Didyma (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Temple of Apollo in Didyma, about 17 km from Milerus, is a vast complex. In the corner of a garden to the right of the temple, it might be possible to miss the stone-carved head of Medusa. Yet this picturesque carving has become as much a symbol of tourism in Turkey as the red tulip or the beach at Ölüdeniz. Carvings of the snake-haired Medusa were used in order to protect important buildings and places from the evil eyes.

Kaş:

Myriad Lycian rock tombs in the hills above Kaş were carved out of the cliff-faces in the 4th century BCE (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I ended up in Kaş by accident one morning on my way to Kastellorizo. Kaş was founded by the Lycians, and a rich Lycian necropolis can be seen in the cliff-faces above the town, while the streets are littered with Lycian sarcophagus-type tombs. It was known to its Greek inhabitants as Andifli until they were expelled in the 1920s. And yet, walking around the town, it still feels like a Greek town, and the mosque on the acropolis above Kaş still bears many marks from its time as a Greek Orthodox church.

Ölüdeniz:

The beach at Ölüdeniz … the most photographed beach in Turkey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Kusadasi has attractive beaches, including Ladies’ Beach, and the less-known Paradise Beach, below the Palmin Sunset Hotel. But Fethiye has Ölüdeniz, the most photographed beach in Turkey. Apart from swimming and beach walks, I have also enjoyed this beach as a starting point for tours of the islands off the Anatolian coast, and for visits to Butterfly Valley, and a place to watch paragliders descending from the top of Babadağ, the mountain above the beach.

Ten places in the rest of Europe:

Paris:

Montmartre symbolises Paris for me more than many other sights

When Henry of Navarre became the heir to the French throne in 1593 he was a Protestant. But he was so eager to become king he declared: “Paris is worth a Mass.” His change of mind earned him the resentment of the Huguenots and of his former ally, Queen Elizabeth. But he gained Paris and the allegiance of the vast majority of the people, and he was crowned King of France in Chartres Cathedral on 27 February 1594.

What is Paris worth? It is certainly worth more than the few weekends and the half-dozen or more times I have been there. On my last visit, I enjoyed a jog each morning up the slopes of Montmartre.

I know someone who says there are two types of people: those who prefer Paris, and those who prefer Rome; I am happy to go back to either, but would be happier to go back to both.

Venice:

Venice … an easy and pleasant place to get lost (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I have a recurring dream of being lost in the back streets of Venice, not knowing which bridge to cross, or which narrow alleyway to turn into.

But unlike the 1973 movie Don’t Look Now starring Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, this is not a frightening dream. At every twist and turn, on every island, there is another beautiful beautiful church with beautiful masterpieces and paintings, another beautiful work of architecture, or another quiet piazza or curious bridge.

Perhaps the most interesting places I have visited in Venice are not Saint Mark’s basilica or square, nor the Rialto Bridge or the Bridge of Sighs, but the Jewish ghetto with its synagogues, the original Italian ghetto; the Armenian Monastery on the small island of San Lazzaro degli Armeni in the Lagoon, west of the Lido; and the tiny island of Torcello, where the story of Venice begins, with the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta, founded in 639.

Rome:

Tourists believe throwing coins in the Trevi Fountain guarantees a return visit to Rome (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Samuel Johnson, the pithy Lichfield lexicographer, once said: “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.” I suppose I could say when someone tires of Rome, they are tired of life. Like everyone else I know, I have walked my legs off every time I have visited Rome.

Bucharest:

The courtyard in Stavropoleos Monastery … a quiet and prayerful corner of Bucharest (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Nobody I know ever thinks of a city break in Bucharest. But the Romanian capital was once known as the “Paris of the East,” and it has elegant, tree-lined boulevards, beautiful churches, parks, museums and galleries, and even has its own Arc de Triomphe. I first went there shortly after the Ceaușescu regime fell a quarter of a century ago. I have since returned as a journalist to cover an election campaign, when I was working with a mission agency to forge links between the Anglican church in central Bucharest and a city centre Romanian Orthodox parish, and for family visits.

Florence:

The octagonal baptistery in Florence, built between 1059 and 1128 … Dante was baptised there (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

If Bucharest is the “Paris of the East,” then Florence was the “Athens of the Middle Ages.” Florence is the birthplace of the Renaissance; this is where Dante wrote, where Brunelleschi built, where Giotto dreamed, where Michelangelo painted and carved. Culturally it is one of the most important cities in Europe. And it is at the very heart of Tuscany.

Verona:

Fair Juliet’s Balcony in Verona (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

One year on holidays I enjoyed reading A Season With Verona by Tim Parks, one of the best sports books I have read in years. He goes on the road to follow the fortunes of Hellas Verona, his local soccer team, and ends up visiting some of the most beautiful cities in Italy.

While I was staying near Venice once, I visited Verona for dinner, to see Juliet’s Balcony and to go to the Opera in the Arena di Verona), a Roman amphitheatre that is one of the best preserved buildings of its kind. That night it was Verdi's Aida. I could go back to Verona for more ... more opera rather than more football.

Budapest:

Parliament buildings at the banks of the Danube in the Hungarian capital

I was surprised when I was given a short posting in Budapest by The Irish Times and realised I was in the heart of central Europe and in one of its most beautiful cities. From my hotel room I had a view across the Danube to the Parliament Buildings, and only a stroll from Castle Hill and the Castle District, with the former Royal Palace, the 700-year-old Saint Matthias Church, the equestrian statue of King Stephen, and the Fisherman’s Bastion.

Saranda, Albania::

On the way between Saranda and Butrint, on the Albanian coast looking out to Corfu (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

That package holiday deal that gave me the cheapest and fastest way to get to Corfu also left me with time to visit Albania, once one of the most isolated countries in Europe, and one of the most difficult places to visit. I caught a ferry to Saranda, known to Greeks as Άγιοι Σαράντα (Agioi Saranda, the Forty Saints), 14 km east of Corfu. It is home to an ethnic Greek minority, but lost more than half of its ethnic Greeks in the decade between 1991 and 2001.

I travelled 14 km south, to visit Butrint and its archaeological site, close to the Greek border. In the early 6th century, it became the seat of a bishop and new buildings included a basilica and a large octagonal baptistry, one of the largest Early Church buildings of its kind.

Bruges and Ghent:

The Ghent Altarpiece … the fully opened panel on display

Working as a Foreign Affairs journalist involved a number of visits to Brussels. But once, on a private visit to Brussels, I travelled to Bruges. Halfway between the two is Ghent; Bruges and Ghent are two gems of Flanders. Bruges includes the Lake of Love (Minnewater) and the Beguinage Convent. I had lunch in the Market Square, visited the Church of Our Lady with its statue by Michelangelo, walked by the canals, and visited the Chapel of the Holy Blood.

I was so enthralled by Bruges that I forget to get off the train in Ghent on my way back to Brussels. In Ghent, Saint Oliver Plunkett was consecrated Archbishop of Armagh in Saint Bavo Cathedral, which is home of the Ghent Altarpiece, with its panel depicting the “Mystic Lamb.” Now that’s a good excuse to return.

Vienna

The Stephensdam and Saint Charles … two churches that are landmarks in Vienna

Once I was invited by the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna to take part in a panel discussion on dialogue between Europe and the Mediterranean world, between Christians and Muslims. The other panellists included the former UN Secretary General, Boutros Boutros Ghali from Egypt. I stayed on an extra day to see the city of Mozart and the Habsburgs.

I have since stopped off in Vienna during flights to and from China. On one occasion I had an opportunity to visit the former Jewish ghetto and to visit its museums and synagogues. It was a first-hand moving experience of the Holocaust. On another, I arrived from Beijing in time to experience the celebrations of the 8 September in the Stephensdam, Saint Stephen’s Cathedral, with its celebrated with its multi-coloured tile roof. This was Mozart’s parish church when he lived at the Figaro House nearby; he was married there, two of his children were baptised there, and his funeral took place in the Chapel of the Cross.

Six places in the Middle East and Africa:

Jerusalem:

‘Little Jerusalem’ … a painting in Little Jerusalem in Wynnfield Road, Rathmines (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I first taken to Jerusalem to celebrate receiving a degree. It was a truly educational visit. Being there in reality put in place many of the things I had read about and studied. I returned again a few months later, and I have travelled throughout Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. On one visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, I banged my head against the lintel as I stooped to leave. The priest in charge must have heard the crack, and took pity on me. I still treasure the cross he gave me, and the pectoral cross that was later given to me at the 1998 Lambeth Conference by the then Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem, Riah abu el-Assal.

But the term Holy Land should not be limited to or confined to these two political units. On visits to Damascus, Egypt, Turkey, Greece and Italy I have also been conscious of being in Bible lands. Yet I am reminded of those visits to Jerusalem and Damascus when I eat in two of my favourite Palestinian restaurants in Dublin: Little Jerusalem in Rathmines and Damascus Gate in Camden Street.

Bethlehem:

The Star marking the birthplace of Christ in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem (Photograph: DirD/Wikipedia)

When I was visiting Jerusalem, I also visited Bethlehem, and the Church of the Nativity, and stepped down into the crypt where a star is said to mark the place of Christ’s birth. Even there, in the cloisters beside the Church, I was taken offguard to bump into someone from Ireland who appeared to be a complete stranger but who remembered me.

Cairo:

The minarets of al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The present political turmoil and street protests in Egypt remind me constantly of my visits to Egypt, and the times I have spent in Cairo working on Christian-Muslim dialogue. Nothing prepares the first-time visitor for the experience the sight of the pyramids at first hand.

On one visit, I stayed in the apartment that was the Deanery for All Saints’ Anglican Cathedral, and was woken each morning by the call to prayer from a neighbouring store-front mosque. As a Christian, it is good to be reminded in Muslim countries through the call to prayer from mosques and minarets of the need to punctuate the day with the rhythm of regular prayer.

Late at night, I felt surprisingly safe walking through the streets of Cairo. Although I imagine this is hardly possible today, on the other hand I am convinced I would receive the same warm welcome in Cairo from Christian and Muslim religious leaders, in both All Saints’ Cathedral and in al-Azhar Mosque.

Mount Sinai:

Saint Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai

It is no longer safe for foreigners to travel overland from Cairo through the Sinai peninsula to Saint Catherine’s Monastery at the foot of Mount Sinai. But while I was working on a programme on Christian-Muslim dialogue I stayed in the monastery as a guest of the monks. Father Justin gave me a full tour of the monastery buildings, including the library and a unique mosque inside the monastery itself.

Then, late at night, I climbed the mountain in time to reach the pinnacle before sunrise, when I celebrated the Eucharist for our small group, using bread and wine from the meal the evening before in the monastery. A panorama of three continents spread below us. The journey back down was much easier than the climb up, and I was back in Saint Catherine’s in time for a late breakfast.

Johannesburg

Inside Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Johannesburg

As apartheid was about to crumble, and shortly before Nelson Mandela was released from prison, I travelled throughout South Africa with Christian Aid and the South African Council of Churches, visiting churches and meeting church leaders, to see how they were providing safe space for the ANC and other groups to organise and to prepare for democracy. My visit brought me to Johannesburg, Soweto, Alexandria, Pretoria, Bloemfontein, Kimberley, Bethlehem, Cape Town and Khayelitsha on the Cape Flats, and to the borders of Lesotho.

One of the first places I visited in Johannesburg was Saint Mary’s Anglican Cathedral, where the deans had included Desmond Tutu and Gonville ffrench-Beytagh, who had been so influential in forming my understandings of Anglicanism, Christian faith and discipleship. John Darragh, the Irish-born SPG missionary who helped to build Saint Mary’s, was one of the early strong Anglican voices to speak out against the racism that would develop into apartheid, and he is commemorated in Darragh House and the baldacchino over the high altar in the cathedral.

Windhoek and Walvis Bay, Namibia:

Flamingoes along the Atlantic shore of Namibia at Walvis Bay (Photograph: www.my.na)

As the South Africans were withdrawing from what they called South-West Africa in 1990, I also travelled throughout Namibia, to see how churches and church leaders were providing safe space for SWAPO and others to prepare for democracy. I met the SWAPO leadership, and travelled to Windhoek, through the Kalahari and Namib Deserts, to Swakopmund and Walvis Bay, and as far north as the border with Angola, where I stayed in a mission station.

One day, driving west from Windhoek through the arid desert, we saw elephants walking on the brow of a dusty hill. And then, shortly before sunset, the Atlantic coast opened before us, with flocks of flamingoes dotted all along the horizon.

Six places in Asia:

Beijing:

Inside the Forbidden City in Beijing (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

When I first arrived in Beijing in May 1979, I was refused to permission to get off the plane because there were no diplomatic relations between Ireland and China. I travelled on to Tokyo, but on my way back a few months later, I was allowed off … Dessie O'Malley had been there in the meantime n a diplomatic and trade mission, the Cold War between Dublin and Beijing was over, and now my passport was recognised; I could go shopping in the airport. Since then, I have been back to China a number of times with the Dublin University Far Eastern Mission and the China Forum of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.

Shanghai:

The former Anglican cathedral in Shanghai (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A replica of the Nestorian Stele stands in the Muen Church in Shanghai. It dates from the Tang dynasty was erected in 781, recording 150 years of early Christianity in China. It is a reminder of the centuries-old presence of Christianity in China. Shnaghai is the most cosmopolitan city in China, and it is still possible to see the architectural legacy of the French, British and Russian presence pre-dating World War II.

The former Anglican Cathedral, now Holy Trinity Church, is oldest cathedral of its kind in China, and was designed in the Gothic Revival style by Sir George Gilbert Scott. Three Irish Anglican missionaries were bishops in Shanghai, including the last Irish Anglican bishop in China, Bishop John Curtis, who left China in 1950.

Haima:

I received a warm welcome in the mountaintop village of Haima (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The warmest welcome I received in China was in the remote mountaintop village of Haima in Guizhou Province, 1752 km south-west of Beijing, in a remote rural and coal-mining part of China. The Miao people there feel more remote and further from Beijing than I do in Dublin. I visited the local church and schools, and the people there generously shared their food for the long journey back by road to Guizhou.

Hong Kong:

Inside Saint John’s Cathedral, Hong Kong (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I stopped off in Hong Kong twice when I was visiting Japan in 1981. It changed dramatically in many ways when I returned in 2005 and 2006, after it had returned to Chinese rule, and yet, paradoxically, so many things had not changed.

On my later visits, I was a guest of the Anglican Church in Hong Kong, the newest province of the Anglican Communion, and visit schools, parishes, old people’s homes, Ming Hua Theological College, and Saint John’s Cathedral, and met the bishops, clergy, parishioners, theological educators and students.

Tokyo:

Asia Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo … I was a student here during the summer of 1979

I was never outside Ireland and Britain until 1979, when the late Douglas Gageby nominated me for a Fellowship with Nihon Shimbun Kyokai that allowed me to study for a full term in Japan. I was 27, and it was a long journey for a young journalist travelling east of Greenwich for the first time. My stopovers in Karachi on the way out and in Islamabad on the way back were my first experiences of visiting a Muslim country.

In Tokyo, I stayed in Asia Bunka Kaiikan, a student hostel in the Bunkyo-ku district, and travelled throughout Japan, as far north as Hokkaido, and as far south as Hiroshima, visiting Kyoto, Nara, and Mount Fuji too, and was invited to lecture in Sophia University. At the time it was a rare and almost exotic experience for someone from Ireland, but the only Japanese I have retained is enough to say please and thank you, Good Morning and Good Evening, and to count to four.

Hiroshima

The Atomic Dome and the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima

During that summer term in Japan, I spent some time in Hiroshima where I met survivors of the 1945 Atomic bombing. I was already involved in the protests in Carnsore, Co Wexford, taking part in the occupations of the proposed site for a nuclear reactor. But my visit to Hiroshima and my meetings with those survivors was life-changing. On my return to Ireland I became involved in re-founding the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and today I am still President of Irish CND, an honour for a man of my age.

62 more places

I suppose I could have listed 62 more places. There is no photograph here for Dublin itself, and no photographs for many of my other favourite beaches, including Kilcoole, Rush, Greystones, Laytown, Kilmuckridge, Brittas Bay, Courttown, Loughshinny, Curracloe, Ardmore, Keel, Rosslare, Keem, Paradise Beach below the Palmin Sunset Hotel in Kusadasi, Ladies’ Beach, Antonio’s Beach in Zakynthos ... There are no photographs from my mother’s home village, Millstreet, Co Cork. No photographs of houses I have lived in in Harold's Cross, Donnybrook, Ballinteer, Templeogue and Frhouse. Nor any from Belfast, where I had a student placement on the Shankhill Road in the 1980s, Glenstal Abbey, Rostrevor or Armagh, And none from Ballinskelligs, Co Kerry, where I was sent to learn Irish in 1966 and leaned French (of sorts).

In England, I have missed out on Wilderhope Manor and Wenlock Edge in Shropshire, Ealing Abbey and other favourite places in London, Chester, Liverpool …

There were so many other places to choose from in Greece, Italy, Turkey, Cyprus and throughout Europe … in South Korea … Florida …

Where do I stop?

And now I’ve noticed I have selected 63 photographs, not 62.

Next year should I contemplate 63 favourite beaches, islands, poems, river-side walks, churches and cathedrals, hymns, pieces of music … ?