After Turkey, I traveled to Romania. I spent some time in the county of Galati before traveling to Sinaia and later to Sucheava. Nearby Sucheava are the painted monasteries of Buchovina. One of my seminary professors from Romania, Fr. Pentiuc, seeing on Facebook that I was in Romania, suggested I visit. It was out of […]
The seven days I was in Constantinople/Istanbul was the most moving, exhausting, and colorful part of the pilgrimage. We arrived by bus and went for lunch at the Phanar. Then we visited the small Church of St. Nicholas, one of the 75 still functioning Orthodox churches (served by just 24 priests) in Istanbul. The single […]
After Mt. Athos, we loaded onto the bus and headed off for Turkey. We stopped twice, once in a small city at a fairly decent hotel, and once in a very small town at a very nice hotel by the beach. At the first city, Kavallas, we arrived on the feast day of Sts. Peter […]
We left for Mt. Athos at 5am. I stayed up too late packing, but worse of all, there was music blasting from the theological school where we had taken Greek classes. Police are not allowed to go on college campuses, and if they had campus security they did nothing. After a restless sleep, we were […]
Thessaloniki was a good chance for us to settle down a bit. On the other hand, we’re still touring around twice a week. Plus, we’re taking Greek classes. These classes are just shy of awful. I taught language for 10 years and I’ve studied a language, so I know better than anyone just what we’re […]
After you’ve been traveling for a while, especially when you’re moving rapidly from one place to another, everything starts to blend together after awhile. There was one important moment during our visit to Agina Island, when we visited the monastery where St. Nektarios lived and where his relics are. We visit the room that he […]
We had a brilliant time on Crete, but it was here that it began to seem that things were speeding up and we were running from one place to the next. However, this part of the trip was very special for me. We visited a monastery that had been re-founded by a nun who was […]
Paris was an amazing experience, and a bit of a surprise. We had been told we’d be going ‘somewhere’ in Europe before going on to Greece, but we didn’t know where. It turned out to be Paris. After Rome, Paris was my second choice. It was great because did this first so I wasn’t exhausted […]
