Our First Day Spent with the First Baptized in Europe
Location: Philippi and Kamala
The start of a new liturgical year also marks the start of the next portion of our journey with St. Paul. This time, following him through Greece. To say the Greece portion of the trip had a strong start would be an understatement.
After enjoying our first Greek breakfast, we headed from Thessaloniki onward to our first stop, St. Lydia’s Baptistry. On the drive there, we were surrounded by mountains the whole time, which, on top of being beautiful, was a little taste of home for a Wyoming boy like me.
St. Lydia’s baptistry is an incredible place, where an incredible saint was baptized. St. Lydia, who we read about in Acts 16:14-15, was one of the many people St. Paul encountered on his missionary journey. Apart from being unique as a woman who owned her own purple cloth dealing business in Ancient Greece, Lydia is unique because she is the first person in the European continent to be baptized. In Acts 16:15, she and her whole household are baptized after hearing St. Paul’s proclamation of the Gospel. Her response didn’t stop there. She also opened her home for St. Paul to stay in.
At the site itself, there is a baptistry built into the river, and surrounding it is a little shrine with her image, as well as an altar and amphitheater where we celebrated mass together. Having mass in that place was a beautiful reminder of the witness of the early Christians who gave their lives to Christ at the words of St. Paul. A reminder of how important and central Christ is to me.
After Mass, we spent some time on the grounds around the Baptistry, including a beautiful orthodox church dedicated to St. Lydia. The icons of the Church were stunning, and any photos cannot do them justice. Icons are windows into the heavenly reality, and I definitely felt this reality when I was in the church. Many blogs could be written about the icons, but the ones to highlight were at the center of the church above a baptistry which depicted various different baptisms throughout the New Testament.
Though I could have stayed much longer, we needed to make our way to our next stop, Philippi. Phillipi, or more properly the ruins of Phillipi, was an impressive ancient city in which they have uncovered many buildings. The highlights of this place were the ancient churches and a chapel where St. Paul was likely imprisoned in Phillipi.
Our last and final stop was Kavala. This town was where St. Paul first stepped foot in Greece and, though we didn’t get much time with him in Kavala, we did get to have our first Greek lunch in Kavala, Greece. After lunch, we headed back, satisfied, to Thessoloniki where we prepared ourselves to continue following in the footsteps of St. Paul.
-Anthony Richter, Diocese of Cheyenne
