Tuesday, October 1

Today began with a visit to Saint Sophia ("Holy Wisdom") church in Thessaloniki. This church was built to the same design and relative dimensions of the Saint Sophia church in Istanbul, although it is admittedly much smaller. The mosaic icon of Christos Pantokrator ("Christ, the Almighty," found in the dome of all Byzantine style churches) was breathtaking. We had the opportunity to sing several hymns while we were in the church. When it was suggested that we sing "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty," Rev. Tim insisted that because of the icons throughout the church we had to sing the second verse ("Holy, Holy, Holy, All the saints adore thee / Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea / Cherubim and Seraphim bowing down before thee / Who was and art and evermore will be").

With those sounds still ringing in our consciousness, we made our way from Thessaloniki to Kalambaka and the majestic rock formations and monasteries of Meteora. Along the way, our guide Christiana continued to teach us about the history and practices of the Orthodox Church, and Rev. Tim gave a devotional on Hebrews 11:32 - 12:2 relating the practice of iconography to the "great cloud of witnesses" spoken of there who only are made complete by the addition of those whom God redeems from every age.

As we approached Kalambaka, the almost indescribable cliffs of Meteora came into view. We enjoyed lunch at a lovely restaurant at the base of the cliffs, and were entertained by a group of three rock climbers who managed to reach the summit of one of the formations while we watched. When we mentioned to Larissa that we were going to the top of the cliffs, she commented that she didn't have her climbing shoes. She seemed relieved to hear that we were driving up in the bus because, as she said, "Costas is a very good driver."

After lunch we had our first serious shopping fix of the trip. We visited an iconography shop where the artistic techniques employed in creating icons were explained to us. We then had the opportunity to purchase icons, jewelry, oil paintings, and various other souvenir items.

Finally we made our way up to the top of Meteora. There we visited the monastery of St. Stephen (one of two nunneries on the heights). A fascinating feature of one of the chapels was that all the icons at one level of the church's architecture were evenly divided with female saints on one side and male saints on the other. Leaving St. Stephen's, we continued to follow the very winding roads along the ridge to see all seven of the remaining monasteries -- the last of which was no more than a few walls tucked into a cave well up a cliffside and accessible only by a technically demanding climb.

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