Only four months late: Liam’s baptism…

Well, Liam’s baptism was February 12th, so obviously, as mentioned in my previous post, I’m a bit behind on all my blog posting!

We had his christening in Richie’s hometown Templemore in Tipperary on the day Liam turned 5 months old. There are a couple of Catholic churches in Istanbul, but we wanted to wait until we were in Ireland because we figured that for any future religion-related event (first communion, wedding, etc), we or he might need to get documentation of his baptism and then would have to get it from a church in Turkey, which would be rather inconvenient, since we plan on living thousands of miles away from here for most or all of our future! It was also great to have the baptism in Ireland because it was pretty simple to plan (I think it was- really, Richie’s mother did the planning for us!). I know in the US, you have to do a pre-baptism course and things like that, but in Ireland we didn’t, and since we didn’t have a lot of time, it was nice to have the simplicity. Plus, we wanted to have it with at least part of our family and lots of our friends to celebrate with us, so that’s what we did.

Liam’s godmother is one of our best friends of all time, Andrea, who was Richie’s flatmate when they were both doing master’s degrees back in the day. I met Andrea almost as soon as I moved to Ireland back in 2005, and she became one of the best and most important friends I’ve ever had! So, now she’s Liam’s second mother, which will certainly be an easier role to fill when we all live in the same country again! I look forward to that. Liam’s godfather is Richie’s older brother David, who Liam got to meet when we were in Ireland. It was great to spend lots of time in Templemore when we were on holiday and Liam got to know his uncle a bit then. The tractor board book that David gave him while we were there is still one of Liam’s favourites! And David really made my day when him and Richie’s mam came to collect myself and Liam from the airport in Dublin when we arrived back from our America trip. After all those hours alone on a plane with Liam, the sleeplessness, the manoeuvring in the airport, etc., it was a happy sight coming out to see the two of them there to take us back to Tipperary!

So, back to the christening. It was a lovely day with family and friends, although not quite as many friends as we’d hoped! It was actually kind of crazy! It happened that so many people we invited were ill or had other mishaps and couldn’t make it on the day: one friend had a chest infection, another had to fly to Italy for a family emergency and since he couldn’t come, two others couldn’t come either because they all work in the same restaurant and had to cover for each other, then the wife of Richie’s friend got ill on the trip down and had to leave right after the ceremony in the church, one of Richie’s mam’s friends was in the hospital, David’s girlfriend was sick… you get the idea. But we still had some lovely friends there and had a great day all the same.

It was a nice simple ceremony in the church, where another little baby got baptised along with Liam. We went all old-school and Liam wore a gown and bonnet. It was so cute, I just couldn’t stop smiling about it! I think it was a girl’s baptism outfit really, but who cares. We decided it had a sort of Victorian look about it. Then we had lunch back at Richie’s parents’ house, sitting by the fire, enjoying the occasion.

Here’s a short video from the baptism. It was funny because when we arrived at the church, it was just about his normal naptime, so he was a little fussy. I suddenly thought we might have a situation where Liam basically cried for the entire ceremony, and wasn’t looking forward to it! But after a little snuggling in my arms, he fell asleep, and then slept through the whole production, only stirring and rubbing his eyes a bit when the water was poured on his head. The priest actually poured on a little extra to try and get a little noise out of him, because the other baby had been so quiet too, but even that didn’t produce even a squeak. Quietest baptism ever!

 

And here are the photos!

 

Last day in Cappadocia: churches, canyons and underground cities…

Well, here are the photos from our last, action-packed day in Cappadocia. We decided to go on a tour, because many of the sites around the area would have been pretty much impossible to reach without a car. It’s not something we usually do, but it was definitely worth it in this case. We started out at a beautiful spot with amazing panoramic view over the region and one of Cappadocia’s impressive volcanoes looming in the distance. The guide explained about the whole volcanic geography thing, which was interesting.

Then we headed for one of Cappadocia’s apparently hundreds of underground ‘cities’. The underground city idea originated with the Hittites, some of the first people to live here. Their underground constructions were usually just one or two levels below the ground. However, later people expanded these settlements and the one we visited was eight storeys deep! We visited storage rooms, a meeting hall, cuneiform church, kitchen, wine-pressing room, living rooms and even a stable while wandering around twisty defensive tunnels designed to confuse intruders and make it very difficult for them to actually attack these underground fortresses. These places were useful in times of war or when enemies were raiding the area. The people normally lived in above-ground villages, but retreated into these underground ones only in times of need. Unfortunately, it was pretty impossible to take a decent photo down there, so you’ll just have to use your imagination.

After that, we headed to lunch in a cheap and cheerful sort of place near a small river in a forested canyon. This canyon was once full of cave houses and many churches. We also saw pigeon coves carved into the canyon walls at one point. People decorated these alcoves with red painted designs to attract the pigeons, who provided the people with droppings later used as fertilizer. Our guide said people only came to collect the fertilizer once a year, so as not to frighten away the pigeons. The shells of pigeon eggs were also used to make the frescos painted on all the churches stick better. I’m not sure if they were used to make a base-layer under the paintings or if the egg shell was mixed right into the paint.

We took a nice walk through the canyon and enjoyed the fantastic weather. It was warm, the sun was shining, and I loved hearing the sound of the stream as we walked along. We stopped at one of the churches and had a look inside, and then we hiked up a load of stairs to get out of the canyon so we could head off to visit a former mountain monastery, which was also pretty cool although much of it has fallen off in big chunks and been worn away by the elements over the years.

So, it was a beautiful last day, and we ended our trip with a delicious dinner and some wine. We had a local speciality, which is a vegetable and lamb stew slow-cooked in a small clay jar for five hours. The restaurant itself was great as well. It was snug and warm with an old iron stove in the middle of the room for heating, and we took off our shoes and sat on the floor, traditional style, on big, fluffy, comfortable cushions at a low table in our own little nook. I wanted to live there. It was so comfortable! And I had some of the nicest wine I’ve tasted in a long time. Sigh. It was amazing. I’d definitely love to go to Cappadocia again.

 

Cappadocia: Çavuşin village…

After our wanderings through Swords and Rose Valleys on our second day in the Göreme area, we arrived in Çavuşin village. It was a lovely quiet village and had some amazing sites to visit. The ‘old’ village, now abandoned, was all carved into the hillside. I’m not really sure how old the settlement is, but it’s definitely been around for a long, long time. All the buildings and churches and homes of the village were within the hill and were probably connected internally via tunnels and such. As we wandered around the ruins and took in the amazing view of the plains and hills stretching all the way to the horizon, I could understand why people living here would want to burrow into the mountains. Basically, if you lived out here in a village in Cappadocia, you were on your own. If raiders or brigands or enemy armies or whatever arrived in the area, there was really no one to help you. It must have been a strange and precarious life, living in such isolation. So, these villages built into the rock must have been much more secure and difficult to attack or raid than if the people just lived in houses on the plain.

Now the insides of many of the buildings are now exposed due to hundreds and hundreds of years of weathering and erosion. The hillsides of these kind of hill towns and villages are covered in rubble and huge rocks and boulders, much of it formerly walls and various outer bits of the buildings. So, now from a distance you can gaze into a church or right into what was once someone’s cosy little cave home. Even homes carved into mountains don’t last forever.

I’m not really sure about many of the details of Çavuşin’s history. I don’t know when the hill village was abandoned, but there is also a ‘new’ Çavuşin on the ground level that seems to be doing rather well. It was a quiet place, with men sitting drinking tea at the tea shop near the mosque, women in traditional Turkish village clothes (but also many younger girls wearing jeans and T-shirts with very stylishly cut hair), and old houses with farm equipment here and there. Presumably most people who live here have some connection to farming. Anyway, it was a great place to explore, enjoy a cup of tea and breathe in the fresh air.

Cappadocia: Göreme Open-Air Museum…

On the morning of our second day in Göreme we got up early, had our breakfast outside in the pensiyon garden in the brisk morning air and then headed down the road to the Open Air Museum. We got to the museum early, but even by about 9am the place was packed full of tourist! It was a little annoying, but it was still interesting to see the place.

Basically, the Cappadocia region is full of both underground cities and cities built right into the hills and mountains. Because much of the rock is formed from volcanic ash, it is quite soft and easy to dig into. Then, once dug, the contact with air and moisture makes the rock harden and gives a bit more solidity to the houses and structures.

The  Göreme Open Air Museum is just one of the many villages carved into the hills. From the time of the Roman Empire Cappadocia was an important place for Christian settlement, and in addition to the houses built into the hills, there are hundreds and hundreds of churches and chapels. I think the region first attracted hermits and monastic communities, which is easy to understand. Cappadocia is made up of huge empty plains and beautiful canyons and mountains, and it is so silent and peaceful, it’s hard to imagine a better place to live a simple and contemplative life. Drawn by the monastics, further settlements developed around the area and Christianity flourished here from the 4th to 11th century.

So, we wandered around the museum and squeezed into a number of small chapels, houses and whatnot. In a few of the chapels there were still some bits of paint from the frescos that once decorated the walls. One of the churches, called the ‘Dark Church’, had been restored and it was amazing to see all the beautiful paintings and bright colours covering nearly ever inch of wall and ceiling space. There were frescos of scenes from the life of Jesus as well as many paintings of Orthodox saints and Byzantine Emperors and Empresses. It was still a small church, and perhaps it was the chapel of a particular family, but it was one of the bigger ones in the museum.

It was interesting to think about some of the different ideas and cultural concepts that were and are a part of Christianity. In Cappadocia the trend was definitely to have as many churches as possible, and new churches were constantly being built. I thought this was sort of a strange thing to do, but then I think it is connected to what I think is still true in Orthodox Christianity ( I welcome any corrections or further information here, because I’m no expert on the subject!). The actual sacrifice of the mass taking place is the most important thing, and it isn’t really very important whether lay people are participating or spectating or not. In Orthodox services, the priests are facing away from the people and all the important bits of the mass are done at an altar hidden from the congregation, as was formerly the case in Catholicism. People can come for communion or say their prayers or watch while the mass is going on, but people can come and go during the service and it seems like the attention or participation of lay people isn’t very necessary to the proceedings. So, with this in mind, having tons of tiny chapels big enough to fit the few priests needed for a mass, so that lots of masses are constantly being said, makes more sense.

Okay, that’s all for now. More to come later!

Friday update…

Not too much is going on this week. Richie has had a bit of a sore throat and was slightly under the weather for a couple of days. The weather has been pretty nice; sunny and a bit crisp but sometimes rather warm. I’m just glad that all that rain is over, for the time being. My week-night students came to almost all of their lessons this week, which is good for me financially, but it’s also good for my psychological state I’ve decided. Obviously, having time off and less work is great, but I find that if I don’t have enough structure in my schedule, I can get a bit bored and surly. It was nice to be productive. I also have been better about doing all the domestic stuff too. I cooked some proper meals (so did Richie!), did lots of cleaning around the house, and went to the market yesterday. I am still feeling a bit resistant to the ‘have to’s, but I’m getting there!

We also booked flights and accommodation to go to Cappadocia (Kapadokya) in a week and a half! One of the biggest Muslim holidays- Kurban Bayramı- is that week, so we get some time off and have decided to make the most of the opportunity! We were originally thinking of doing something a bit closer to Istanbul, but some of my students and then co-workers advised a trip to Cappadocia. It sounds absolutely amazing. I can’t wait to see it. I’m going to try and read as much as I can on the internet so I know more about what we’ll be seeing. I find being an informed traveller makes the whole experience much more rewarding and interesting. So that’s my homework.

I am now drinking my morning cup of tea while Richie gets a bit more sleep. Later we’ll probably head into town, go for brunch, hopefully go to a museum and then have dinner with friends later. I also really need to buy a pair of shoes and a few new bits of clothes, but we’ll see. I might do that another day since I don’t want to torture Richie on his day off!

The western districts of Istanbul: Fener and the Greek Patriarchate…

On Friday we had our usual day off, and since it was the first Friday for a few weeks that it wasn’t pouring rain, we decided to do some urban exploration.

We took a stroll along the Haliç (the Golden Horn) and visited the area where the Greek Patriarchate is, in Fener. We saw some sections of the old Byzantine walls that once surrounded the city. It was interesting to see how much the ground level has risen since the walls were build. We saw one of the old gates of the city, that was probably very near the water’s edge, but is now quite along way from the Haliç and is now very short after years of accumulation of silt and rubble and rubbish and whatever else.

We stopped at a kahvehane (coffee house) for some warm and delicious refreshment, because even though it wasn’t raining, it was pretty windy and a bit chilly. I wanted to go there because the other day I’d been talking to a friend about the old way of making Turkish coffee and this place seemed like it might serve it that way. As my friend had explained, say in her grandparents’ time, Turkish coffee was made on coals, which meant it cooked nice and slow, taking maybe 25 minutes to slowly foam and simmer. This makes a delicious cup of coffee that is smooth and foamy and almost creamy in texture. If you make Turkish coffee too quickly using too high a heat, you just get watery horrible stuff. Anyway, this comfy little cafe did in fact heat the coffee on hot coals, although it certainly didn’t take 25 minutes. But it was delicious and foamy and wonderful, just like I hoped. It was definitely a great place to stop.

Then we continued our wanderings into Fener. We walked along some very hilly cobbled streets, lined with old and slightly dingy, but colourful houses, some drapped with clothes lines and washing hanging out to dry or some bright flowers dangling from window boxes. This area used to be a predominantly Greek part of Istanbul, but now it is one of the most conservative Muslim areas, and I imagine pretty much all of the Greeks who used to live here are long gone. But this area is still home to the Ecumenical Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, and this has been the location of the Patriarchate since 1601.

We saw a great big red brick Greek school/orphanage (no longer in use) perched up on a hill overlooking the many houses of Fener and the Haliç. We also saw the church of St Mary of the Mongols or Maria Mouchliotissa in Greek. This is still an operational Orthodox church, hidden away amidst the homes and tattered buildings of the area.

Apparently this Maria was a daughter of the Byzantine Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos who reigned in the 1200s. The emperor entered into an alliance with the Mongols, led by the great Khan Hulagu, who was favourably disposed towards Christians because a number of Mongols were Nestorian Christians. So, it was arranged that Maria would marry Hulagu. She arrived at the court of the Mongolian Khan only to discover that he had died. So, she married his son Abagu instead. Later, when Abagu was assassinated by his brother, Maria returned home to Byzantium and founded a church and convent dedicated to the Virgin of the Mongols. She became a nun and lived out her days in the convent.

Another interesting tidbit to go along with the church is that in Turkish it is called Kanlı Kilise, or the Church of Blood, because of the fierce and bloody fighting that took place here during the Ottoman conquest of the city.

It is also interesting because in Turkish the Greeks and their church are referred to as the Rum and Rum Ortodoks. So, basically they are called Romans, due to the fact that, after the centre of the empire shifted away from Rome itself, Constantinople was the centre of the Roman Empire until the 1600s when the Ottoman Turks took over the city. Kind of cool.

Anyway, probably due to our unscheduled coffee break, we actually got to the Patriarchate too late to actually go in and see it. We arrived about 5 minutes before closing time. It was a bit disappointing, but we’re planning to go again in a week or two to see it. I think we also have some more churches and mosques to see in the area, so their will be plenty to occupy us for a second visit!

Prince for a day…

On our last evening in Bodrum we were sitting near the sea, sipping tea at a small outdoor cafe when this festive parade when by. The boy on the pony is all decked out like a little prince in celebration of his circumcision. I think that Muslim boys in Turkey are circumcised when they’re about seven or so. I suppose it’s probably roughly equivalent to having your first communion or bar mitzvah, in terms of it being a key right of passage and an important family celebration. This family certainly went all out for the occasion!

Ephesus: the Church of the Virgin Mary…

One of the first things we saw on arriving at Efes, after walking past some impressive bits of the old city walls and gates, and a gymnasium once housing baths, exercise fields, toilets and a swimming pool, was the Church of the Virgin Mary, apparently also called the Double Church. Next to it were also the remains of a bishop’s palace. It began as a museum, a Hall of the Muses, and was a place for lectures, debates and teaching. After being destroyed by a fire, it was rebuilt as a church in the 4th century.

Ephesus continued: Harbour Road…

The Basilica of St John…

On the same day we visited the Ephesus Museum and the Artemisium, we also saw the St John’s basilica. John (the apostle) came to Ephesus twice, apparently sometime around AD 37 to AD 48, and then he returned to the city at the end of his life. It’s also believed that when he first came to Ephesus, he brought the Virgin Mary with him. Near Selcuk somewhere, you can supposedly see the Virgin Mary’s house, although it sounds doubtful that this sight is much more than an excuse for an extra tourist excursion.

One of the fascinating things about the city of Ephesus is that it was moved a number of times during its lifespan. It was one of the largest and wealthiest cities in the eastern Mediterranean during the Roman Empire, mainly due to the fact that it was a port city. However, the harbour slowly silted up, the sea receded further and further away, and now, there is an expansive, flat, marshy valley between ancient Ephesus, where it sits nestled between two small mountains, and the modern coast of the Aegean.

So, the basilica is in a different location, where Ephesus was later moved, and from this hilltop you can look down on the Artemisium and you can see the rolling hills that hide the impressive ruins of the city’s older incarnation.

I don’t know what exactly I expected when we started to head for the basilica. I think I pictured something more recent, or a medieval church, possibly something that was even still in use. What we actually saw surpassed all of my expectations. Although most of what you now see at the basilica is reconstructed, it is nevertheless, beautiful and amazing.

There were so many stunning marble columns, the remains of the walls and outlines of various parts of the church, and even two baptismal fonts- one a large stone waist-high basin for infants and another dug into the ground, with steps leading down either side for adult baptisms. The location of the basilica is beautiful, with an expansive view of the flat plain stretching all the way to the sea, with mountains all around, and the Isa Bey mosque below. There were olive trees and strange and wonderful flowers growing in the basilica complex, and many tall, narrow cyprus trees all around. And peace and quiet.

Very inconspicuously laid, among some marble columns, is a white marble plaque stating in Turkish and English: St Jean in mezari/the tomb of St John. There was meant to be a tomb built here for St John in the 4th century, but in the 6th century the Byzantine Emperor Justinian built the magnificent basilica in honour of the saint. While we were here, I was so happy to have earlier seen the Aya Sofya (Hagia Sofia) in Istanbul. From the quiet ruins it’s hard to get a true sense of the grandeur and style of this ancient church, but having seen the Aya Sofya and its fantastic domes, I could imagine a little better what this place might have been like.

One thing I found so eye-opening about this trip is that, for whatever reason, I never really connected modern Turkey with the place in the world that you read about in the bible and history books about the beginnings of western civilization, Hittites and Trojans and the Roman Empire, etc. The first Christian churches were in Turkey. St John lived and died in Turkey. The Virgin Mary may have lived out her days here, and St Paul wrote many of his letters to the new Christians in different Roman cities in what is now Turkey, but was then called Asia Minor.

Sometimes, living in this country, I get the distinct sense that I’m living in the centre of the world. It’s a humbling and awe-inspiring experience.

The Artemisium and the Lady of Ephesus…

“I have set eyes on the wall of lofty Babylon on which is a road for chariots, and the statue of Zeus by the Alpheus, and the hanging gardens, and the colossus of the Sun, and the huge labour of the high pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolus; but when I saw the house of Artemis that mounted to the clouds, those other marvels lost their brilliancy, and I said, ‘Lo, apart from Olympus, the Sun never looked on aught so grand.”

Antipater, Greek Anthology (IX.58)

One of the most memorable and fantastic things we saw during our holiday travels was the impressive statue of the goddess Artemis/Cybele and the remains of her temple on the outskirts of the town Selçuk, not far from where we were staying in Kuşadası.

We visited the Ephesus Museum in Selçuk in preparation for one of the anticipated highlights of our trip: the ruins of the ancient city of Ephesus (Efes). It was an excellent place to get a feel for the city and what it was like in its ancient heyday.

There were many statues and artefacts, impressive images, or fragments of images, of heroes, emperors and gods carved in stone. Some are well-worn by thousands of years of exposure to the elements so that all the features have blurred and they’re now  just a shadow of the original people depicted. But others are still sharp and clear, looking so life-like. You can nearly feel the presence of the individual people gazing at you through the stone, or of the artists who created such beautiful and inspired works of art. There’s still a sort of magic there, lingering through all the thousands of years that separate our lives from theirs.

For me, the crowning glory of the museum was the beautiful marble image of Artemis, the ‘Lady of Ephesus’. In Greek mythology, the goddess Artemis is the virgin huntress, a symbol of the natural world, and the goddess of childbirth, children and young women. She’s both beautiful and dangerous, and sometimes quite harsh- I suppose this mixture of characteristics makes her an appropriate symbol of the untamed wilderness. She’s an independent lady par excellence; no man or god was able to win her heart, and she protected her freedom and independence, violently when necessary. In Anatolia (the Asian part of Turkey), where ancient Greeks founded settlements along the coast, the fertility goddess Cybele was worshipped by the people already living in those parts, and, as seems to be a rather natural thing in classical religions, the two goddesses were sort of fused into one.

In the particular image of Artemis as the Lady of Ephesus, this goddess takes on a more ‘eastern’ style in her costume and stance, maybe Hittite or some other Anatolian group, rather than having a classical Greek look. The necklace she wears has all the symbols of the zodiac and I think she used to rest her hands on two snake staffs. In Mediterranean mythology and symbolism, snakes represented many things: eternity and renewal (due to the fact that snakes shed their skin and seemingly re-create themselves regularly), health and medicine, wisdom, etc. The strange looking circular objects around her waist represent a rather great abundance of breasts; these symbolise the fertility and earth-mother characteristics of the Anatolian Cybele. It’s an interesting combination: Artemis takes on the seemingly paradoxical roles of eternal virgin and nurturing divine mother. I wonder if this long standing belief in a ‘virgin mother’ had any influence on the later devotion to the ‘virgin mother’ in the new religion- Christianity. Maybe this was one bridging point that helped converts to Christianity make sense of a new spirituality and world-view. It’s just speculation, but an interesting idea.

Looking at this beautiful statue brought to mind something I recently read about a living religion – Hinduism- that involves devotion to ‘idols’ as a main focus of worship. While I don’t make any claim that classical Mediterranean religion and Hinduism are the same thing, I still think reading about a current polytheistic religion sheds some light on a topic that is so foreign to practitioners of the western Abrahamic religions. In a chapter of his book Nine Lives, William Dalrymple shares the story of an ‘idol maker’ from southern India, whose family has been creating beautiful statues of gods and goddesses for the temples of the region for 700 years. He describes the intense devotion to god and the great discipline that is required to make a proper form for the god or goddess to inhabit. The idol maker must focus solely on the divinity, do everything to perfection, and show to the best of his ability the divine beauty of the god in human form. Only with belief, love and devotion will the god come to live in the statue; without these, the statue just remains lifeless metal or stone. God is everywhere, but the statue becomes one focus point for the divinity’s energy, so that it’s easier for worshippers to approach the divine and offer their love and prayers. It’s interesting to read about the intense love and care that goes into this form of worship, and it adds another layer of meaning when looking at the statues of the Greek and Roman gods. They aren’t merely stunning works of art; they were expressions of divine beauty and love.

After the museum visit, we strolled around what remains of Artemis’s great temple in Selçuk. Now there is only one reconstructed column standing, to give at least a small idea of the former height of a building once considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World. According to my opening quote, the Artemisium was the most beautiful thing that the sun had ever shone on, apart from the home of the gods on Mt. Olympus. It had 121 huge columns and was bigger than the great Parthenon temple in Athens.

We wandered around in the rather marshy ruins and tried to get a feel for the place. It was definitely hard to imagine how fantastic it once looked; now it’s just white marble stones and bits of columns scattered here and there amidst the tall grasses and pools of stagnant algae-filled water. But it was a very quiet and reflective place, and the sound of the wind blowing in the grasses and the birds singing in the nearby trees provided a peaceful and slightly melancholic atmosphere.

It’s strange to think of a time when things that we read about in books of ‘Greek mythology’ were once part of a living religion, including a world-view and cosmology that grew, developed, changed and gave meaning to people’s lives for thousands of years. People, presumably from all over the Mediterranean world, would have been visiting this important pilgrimage site to make sacrifices and pray to the ‘Lady of Ephesus’ for many hundreds of years, and this devotion was still an important practice when St. John the evangelist and then St. Paul were living in the city and introducing their rival religion to the local people two thousand years ago. Now, on a nearby hill, you can also wander around the ruins of an ancient Christian cathedral, where John the evangelist is buried, and look down on this same ancient temple of a pagan goddess while listening to the call to prayer from one of the many local mosques, some of which are quite ancient themselves. Everything changes, nothing stays the same. So many layers of our rich and complex human history, all in this one spot.