HOLY LAND SITES AND PILGRIMAGES

by

Father David Belden

 

I would like to commence this talk with a quote by St. Gregory of Nyssa, from THE FATHERS OF THE EASTERN CHURCH by Robert Payne:

 

"The Emperor Theodosius had recognized him (St. Gregory) as the supreme authority in all matters of theological orthodoxy, and once more he was treated with extraordinary respect. The Synod charged him to report on the church in Arabia and Babylon, and so he set off in an imperial carriage, with all the facilities generally offered to an imperial legate. 'For us,' he wrote, 'the carriage was as good as a monastery, and we spent the whole journey singing psalms and fasting unto the Lord.'"

 

(I wish that could be said about our pilgrimages from Toronto to Boston, brothers and sisters, but it would be more accurate to say: "We spent the whole journey visiting shopping malls and eating out!")

 

"He was happy on the journey, but exploded when he came to Jerusalem and watched the seething mass of pilgrims. It made no sense. They were dirty, and their habits in the inns shocked him. He found Jerusalem a filthy, adulterous and poisonous city; there was no other city in the empire where people were so keen to murder one another. 'I cannot imagine that the Lord is living there in the body today, or that there is an abundance of the Holy Spirit in the place,' he wrote, but those were his gentler words. He fumed over Jerusalem. He could remember no passages in the New Testament which suggested that the Christians should go on pilgrimage; the invitation to the Kingdom of Heaven did not include the miseries which attend the innyards of Jerusalem."

 

"He wrote: 'If a man changes his place, he is no further from God. Wherever you may be, God will come to you, if your soul's lodging is such that the Lord may dwell in you and walk among you. If you are full of evil thoughts, even though you be on Golgotha or on the Mount of Olives or in the Chapel of the Resurrection, you are as far from receiving Christ within you, as those who have not acknowledged His sovereignty. Accordingly, beloved, advise the brethren "to journey to the Body of the Lord," but not to make the journey from Cappadocia to Palestine.'" (1)

 

To quote this passage from St. Gregory of Nyssa would not seem to be a propitious way to initiate a lecture entitled: HOLY LAND SITES AND PILGRIMAGES but I recently used this quote to try to explain the idea of 'patristic consensus' to my congregation. St. Gregory's opinion of pilgrimage was precisely that: his opinion. Nowhere do we find a consensus among the Fathers which would share this private opinion of St. Gregory's.

 

At the same time, Jerome readily admits that pilgrimage is not an obligation:

 

"Nothing is lacking to your faith, although you have not seen Jerusalem: and I am no better because I live where I do: Bethlehem."

 

He, Jerome does not: "presume to restrict to a narrow strip of earth Him Whom the heavens cannot contain:, but poses the following question:

 

"If the tombs of the Apostles and Disciples are glorious, why should we not consider glorious the Tomb of the Lord? After all, everywhere in the world we venerate the tombs of the martyrs, and hold their holy relics to our eyes, or, if we may, kiss them - then how can anyone think we should neglect the Tomb in which they paced the Lord?" (2)

 

"Indeed, for some it is not necessary to travel to Jerusalem the earthly at all, they find the Holy City in the village church on Easter night." (3) says the Englishman Stephen Graham who disguised himself as a Russian pilgrim, and in their company, visited the Holy Land at the turn of the century. His experiences are documented in his fascinating book: WITH THE RUSSIAN PILGRIMS TO JERUSALEM. This author is in the best tradition of his English forbearers who said: "Canter to Canterbury, waltz to Walsingham and roam to Rome."

 

Two pilgrimages to Canterbury were worth one to Rome, and thrice to Canterbury equalled one to the Holy Land. As a supposed student of Orthodox Britain, I had to give you this quip, but I think my supposed expertise rests on nothing more than the fact that I am a former WASP, now a WASO. (White, Anglo-Saxon, Orthodox)!

 

Pilgrimages in Christian history probably predate the first literary mention of them. In 156 A.D., the author of THE MARTYRDOM OF POLYCARP can speak of that bishop's bones as "more valuable than refined gold". But relics - in the strict sense -the mortal remains of a saint - had already acquired a broader meaning which covered all objects which had been in touch with the saint's remains or even his tomb.(4)

 

In Chapter 19 of Acts, we read:

 

"God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them and the evil spirits went out of them." (Acts 19:12)

 

Naturally, the early Christians turned their faces and steps to Palestine, which they conceived to be one vast relic. For the physical contact with Our Saviour, Jesus Christ, had hallowed Palestine for all time, transforming it into the Holy Land. As Our Lord immersed Himself in the Jordan, so all pilgrims made their way thither and did the same.

 

The thin trickle of pilgrims to Palestine in the third century grew into a stream in the fourth. A distinguished pilgrim, the Emperor Constantine's mother, St. Helena, was shown in a dream the whereabouts of the True Cross in Jerusalem, a cave under what would become the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.(5)

 

Contrary to St. Gregory's opinion that "he could find no passages in the New Testament which suggested that Christians should go on pilgrimage," there were those who took Hebrews 11:13 as sufficient justification for pilgrimage.(6)

Hundreds of pilgrims set out from Europe to the Holy Land between 385 and 1099 A.D. Of all these, only eighteen wrote descriptions which have survived. The most famous of the tests is EGERIA'S TRAVELS, a manuscript lost for seven hundred years, until a copy was found in the famous abbey of Monte Cassino in Italy at the turn of the century.

 

Etheria, (or Egeria, as she is now called) was a nun from "the ocean's western shore"(7) (possibly Britain?) whose letter to her sisters back home has proved to be of immense value to the student of the Age of Constantine which is the subject of this Conference. She travelled in the countries now called Egypt, Syria and Turkey, as well as in the Holy Land. Her importance lies in the fact that she is the first author to have described the liturgical year, as celebrated in Jerusalem, in detail.

 

Between Egeria and the modern Christian traveller, there are two striking differences. The modern tourist comes to the East mainly to see buildings and places, but Egeria is more interested in the local Church, and, unlike the Christian traveller of today, who will find time for the pyramids as well as the praetorium, is completely indifferent to anything non-Christian.

 

After A.D. 325, and the Council of Nicea, the Emperor, St. Constantine embarked on a grand scale on a policy of church building in the eastern part of his empire. His friend and advisor Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, says that Palestine was especially chosen to benefit by this activity: "since it was from that source that the River of Life flowed forth to mankind."(8)

 

Eusebius describes what he did: "He chose three places, each distinguished by a sacred cave, and adorned them with rich buildings."(9)

 

Before this, some of the places connected with Our Saviour's life and ministry were known in Christian Tradition, but remained inconspicuous. St. Justin Martyr, for example, describes the cave at Bethlehem in his dialogue with Trypho.

 

While contemplating the Rock of Golgotha, St. Cyril of Jerusalem said: "I have known many wonders, yet, what I previously heard and read, I now verify with my own eyes."(10)

 

The following passage, called THE HOLY CAVE REVEALED is from Eusebius' LIFE OF CONSTANTINE:

"At once the work was carried out, and, as layer after layer of the subsoil came into view, the venerable and most holy memorial of the Saviour's Resurrection, beyond all our hopes, came into view, the Holy of Holies, the Cave, was, like Our Saviour, 'restored to life'...by its very existence bearing clearer testimony to the Resurrection of the Saviour than any words."(11)

 

Imagine the anticipation and the joy at being a participant or a spectator at that event!

 

Eusebius speaks of a visitor called Alexander who later became Bishop of Jerusalem, who came to Jerusalem before 213 A.D. "for the purposes of prayer and investigation of the Holy places."

 

If the flowering of the Roman Province of Palestine into a place of pilgrimage, the Holy Land, can be ascribed to one man, that man is not the Emperor Constantine, but the church historian and bishop of Caesarea, Eusebius. Eusebius imparted his enthusiasm to the Emperor, who had travelled through Palestine as a young soldier in 296 A.D. According to Eusebius' LIFE OF CONSTANTINE, the Emperor said, as he received baptism on his death bed: "I had thought to do this in the waters of the Jordan." At least he spared no effort to adorn the traditional holy places. And, although the Emperor could not personally supervise the works at Jerusalem, he sent not only experts, materials and funds, but also his mother, St. Helena.

 

I know it will come as a chock to the Greeks, but St. Helena was an English princess, whose father, a British king with his palace at Colchester, is the subject of the nursery rhyme: "Old King Coel was a merry old soul, and a merry old soul was he." We must not forget that St. Constantine was crowned Emperor of the western Roman Empire at Yorkminster, seat of the Orthodox Archbishop of York. Just another reminiscence by a WASO!

 

It was not just Constantine's policy simply to build churches, but to efface the memory of pagan worship and superstition, just as his predecessor Hadrian attempted to efface Christian sites by building pagan shrines over them thereby unwittingly marking them for posterity. Now we do not remember Hadrian for anything he did in the Holy Land. He is best remembered for his great wall between England and Scotland, traces of which may be seen today.

 

The first writer to record a pilgrimage to the Holy Places was an anonymous traveller who came overland to Palestine from Bordeaux in A.D. 333. He describes Jacob's Well at Sychar and the church which already existed there, and the Saviour's Tomb, or 'Anastasis' as being in the open air, before any building covered it.

 

This pilgrim goes on to describe the Dead Sea" Its water is extremely bitter, fish are not found there, ships do not sail there, if anyone goes to swim there, the water turns him upside down."(12)

 

This delighted the Emperor Vespasian, the destroyer of Jerusalem in 70 A.D., who would tie his enemies up and throw them into the Dead Sea for a quick death if they landed face down, or a lingering death under the scorching sun, if they landed face up.

 

This pilgrim describes the basilica at Bethlehem as having been completed, and perhaps it was, but it was not dedicated until six years later, on May 31, 339 A.D. His accounts are of great interest.

 

The next writer to speak about the Holy Places is St. Cyril of Jerusalem, whose Catechetical Lectures were delivered in the Church on Golgotha in A.D. 348. In the year when St. Cyril became Bishop of Jerusalem, A.D. 351, St. Basil of Ceasarea came to visit. St. Basil hardly mentions the Holy Places. He states that the object of his journey was to visit and stay with the monks and ascetics and to learn the secret of their holy lives. Perhaps he shared his brother St. Gregory of Nyssa's view on pilgrimage.

 

Egeria is a notable example of a traveller who came to see both the Holy Places and saints, and there were many like her. Melania the Elder and Rufinus who came in 373, Jerome and Vincent in 385, soon followed by the noble lady, Paula and her daughter Eustochium, friends of Jerome.

 

Egeria shared with most ordinary Christians of the Fourth Century, the belief that the Old Testament, no less than the New, was concerned throughout with Jesus Christ. The Christians considered the Jewish holy places sacred, and the land was used in a much fuller way than it is today by Christian visitors, who are, on the whole, less familiar with the Old Testament. The Prophets, for example, were classified as martyrs in Egeria's day, and she would have visited their tombs.

 

St. Cyril constantly appeals to the Holy Places as confirmation of his baptismal lectures: "Should you be disposed to doubt the Crucifixion, the very place which everyone can see, proves you wrong - this blessed Golgotha on which we are now assembles." (13)

 

Of his friend Paula, Jerome says: "She prostrated herself before the Cross, and worshipped as though she could see the Lord hanging there. Entering the Sepulchre of the Resurrection, she kissed the stone which the Angel had removed its mouth. And with faithful lips she touched the place where the Lord's Body had lain as a thirsty man drinks welcome water. Jerusalem is witness to the tears she shed and to her moanings; the Lord is her witness to Whom she prayed." (14)

 

Although the text of Egeria's journal begins with her account of Sinai and environs, it is clear that she has already spent three years in Jerusalem.

 

Egeria makes no comment which suggests any fundamental difference between the Jerusalem Church and her own Orthodox Church in the West. She writes that the bishop, "as the Father of the Christian community sits in the chief seat at services, and when he has blessed the people, they come to him one by one and kiss his hand" Sound familiar? He takes the principal part in the Eucharist and leads many of the prayers. He is the principal teacher, though presbyters also He gives the final sermon on Sunday - this implies there was more than one! - and personally instructs those preparing for baptism. Egeria records the fact that a number of the bishops had started their ministry as monks, and one of the greatest compliments she pays to the clergy is to say: "They are learned in the Scriptures."

 

Egeria mentions that presbyters who were put in charge of churches at some distance from the bishop, presided at the Eucharist. The Deacons lead prayers and psalms, but do not preach. Egeria gives no idea of the function of Deaconess, although she refers to one of her friends as such. For a better description of that Office, see Presbytera Valery Bockman's excellent article carried in four instalments in THE ARIMATHEAN, our parish magazine.

 

A late Fourth Century writer, St. Epiphanius of Cyprus, tells us that when Hadrian visited Jerusalem in A.D. 130, he found the Temple and the city in ruins, "except for a few houses and the little church of God, on the spot where the disciples went up to the Upper Room, on their return from the Mount of Olives, after the Ascension of the Redeemer."

 

The principal memory connected with the Upper room was that of Pentecost, but according to the Jerusalem tradition, and in agreement with such texts as John 20:19,(15) this Upper Room was also the place, where, after the Crucifixion, "the disciples were gathered together for fear of the Jews," and the Risen Christ appeared to them.

 

Egeria gives no hint of any connection between this Upper Room and the room of the Last Supper in her account of the Thursday before Easter, but it seems that this connection had been made by the Fifth Century. The basilica of the Resurrection is mentioned by the Bordeaux pilgrim, but the main description is given by Eusebius in his LIFE OF CONSTANTINE.

 

As Eusebius describes it, Constantine's architects carved away the rocky slope into which the Tomb had been cut. The interior of the Tomb was untouched. By Egeria's time, the rock Tomb no longer stood in the open air as it had done during the time of the Bordeaux pilgrim.

 

Eusebius praised Constantine for adorning not only the Anastasis cave, but two other, "the cave of God's first manifestation" in Bethlehem, and that of His final taking up on the mountain top" on the Mount of Olives.

 

Many of us who have been pilgrims to Jerusalem will remember the beautiful and quiet place called Gordon's Garden Tomb - the place which the famous British General who came to Jerusalem in 1883 - insisted was the authentic burial place of Christ. Because the Jews always buried their dead outside the walls, General Gordon could not accept that the Holy Sepulchre found within Jerusalem's walls could be the actual site of the Saviour's Tomb. What General Gordon did not realize however, is that the walls of Jerusalem were enlarged several times: by the Romans, by the Byzantines, and lastly by the great Muslim commander, Saladin, thus now enclosing the Church of the Holy Sepulchre within the walls.

 

General Gordon, who was later to die in the battle of Khartoum may have been wrong about the whereabouts of the Lord's Tomb, but his heart was in the right place: as he approached the Holy City, he got down from his horse saying: "If will not ride where by Saviour has walked."

 

I expect "Gordon's Garden Tomb," still a favourite Protestant site, must look much like the Tomb of the Saviour once looked before the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was built over it. Modern research has proven, however, that this tomb belongs to the First Temple period rather than that of the Second Temple period - the time of Our Saviour.

 

Although the Bible does not indicate a cave as the birthplace of Christ, the earliest statements about the place agree that such it was. In 150 A.D., this information is given in the Proto-Evangelium of James, and, St. Justin Martyr, writing at the same time, reports that: "Mary bore Christ in a cave very close to the village of Bethlehem." Origen, writing a century later, says that he was shown a cave "very close to the village of Bethlehem" as the birthplace of Christ.

 

The Emperor Justinian enlarged the basilica of Constantine at Bethlehem from the ground up, but in 1936, excavations located the mosaic floor of the original church. Many of us have been blessed to view these Second Century mosaics.

 

Many other churches in the area of Jerusalem are described by Egeria: Eleona, or Mt. of Olives, the Imbomon, or Ascension, Gethsemane and the Lazarium. This has been the briefest survey of buildings and sites at the time of Egeria, but of far more interest to Orthodox, I think, than the present day edifices such as the "Church of All Nations" built on the site of Constantine's basilica, or the modern "Dominus Flevit" chapel and others.

 

The liturgical services described by Egeria were so familiar to her, that she describes for her sisters back home only the things peculiar to Jerusalem. The developments which Egeria so admired in 383 were due to the genius of St. Cyril of Jerusalem.

 

The response, Kyrie, eleison, seems new to Egeria, or she would not have taken the trouble to translate it for her sisters. It does not seem usual in the West until the Sixth Century. When it did catch on, it was retained in the original Greek form, not only in the Roman Church, but even in the later, post-reformation liturgies. Those former Anglicans among us remember the nine-fold Kyrie of Merbecke's Communion Service.

 

Among the readings, the Gospel of the Resurrection at the first service on Sundays, Matins, was always read by the bishop. The Old and New Testament Lessons were followed by preaching. Egeria describes the frequency and length of sermons - any presbyter present was allowed to preach - (how lucky you are!) but the bishop always had the last word! Applause or groans from the congregation marked their participation.

 

We read the same thing of St. John Chrysostom's sermons in Constantinople at the time. Egeria was unwilling to commit to paper her knowledge of the Mysteries of Baptism and the Eucharist, or, if she did, this part of her manuscript is lost.  All our pilgrimess will say about Baptism, is that as soon as the candidates are baptized at the Vigil of Easter, they received their white clothes and were taken to the bishop for a blessing. All that she says about the Eucharist is: "They do here what happens everywhere on a Sunday," and that it lasts from dawn until 11 A.M. (How lucky you are!)

 

Egeria notes that the climax of the Jewish week was the Sabbath, and the New Testament witnesses to the Pharisees' practice of fasting twice in the week. For the Christians, it was the first, rather than the seventh, day, and the fasts were deliberately changed from Monday and Thursday as observed by the Jews, to Wednesday and Friday. In this scheme, the status of the Sabbath was doubtful. St. Ignatius of Antioch, for example, had warned the Christians not to keep the Sabbath, but this rejection did not prevail. Do we see here the principle of patristic consensus once again? By the Fourth Century, Saturdays were kept by special observance everywhere in the Christian world. Even today, every Saturday of the year, fast period or not, is a wine and oil day with the exception of Great and Holy Saturday. Egeria tells us that during Lent, the Synaxis without the Offering, or, Pre-Sanctified Liturgy was celebrated - except on the Sabbath and on Sundays.

 

The Lenten fast was not kept according to a general rule, but according to the capacities of the individual.

 

EGERIA'S TRAVELS begin abruptly at Sinai, since the preceding chapters are lost. She says:

"I want you to be quite clear about these mountains, revered ladies, my sisters, they were almost too much for us to climb, I really do not think I have seen any higher. The holy men were kind enough to show us everything, and there too, we made the Offering (Liturgy), and prayed very earnestly, and the passage was read from the Book of Kings. Indeed, whenever we arrived, I always wanted the Bible passage to be read to us. (I wonder if Egeria's reading was ever drowned out by an organ, as mine was at Golgotha!) There is a church there at the place of the bush, which is still alive and sprouting.

 

So we were shown everything which the Books of Moses tell us took place in that valley beneath Holy Sinai, the Mount of God. I know it has been a rather long business, writing down all these places, one after another, and it makes far too much to remember. But it may help you, loving sisters, the better to picture what happened in these places when you read the holy Books of Moses.

 

I thank God for this wonderful experience He has given me beyond anything I could ask or deserve; I am far from worthy to have visited all these holy places, and I cannot do enough to express my gratitude to all the holy men who so kindly and willingly welcomed so unimportant a person as me among them, and what is more, took me round all the biblical sites I kept asking to see."(16)

 

It seems to me that Egeria here identifies an important reason for pilgrimage when she says: "It may help you to better picture what happened in these places when you read the Holy Books of Moses." This is the effect the Holy Land pilgrimage had on me. How amazed I was to be able to see Jerusalem from Bethlehem; it's only five miles away, after all; or to see how close Golgotha really is to the Saviour's Tomb; close enough to be enclosed in the same building. The Gospel says only:

 

"Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden, a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid."(17)

 

To see how very different is the terrain between Judea and Galilee - I was fascinated by the desert which I had never seen before: whereas Galilee and its orange groves reminded me very much of Florida!

 

Egeria goes on:

"We were also shown the place where Lot's wife had her memorial, as you read in the Bible. But what we saw, revered ladies, was not the actual pillar, but only the place where it had once been. The pillar itself, they say, has been submerged in the Dead Sea. At any rate, we did not see it, and I cannot pretend we did. In fact, it was the bishop there, the Bishop of Zoar, who told us that it was now a good many years since the pillar had been visible. It used to stand near the sixth milestone of Zoar, but it is now completely submerged by water.

 

Sometime after that, since it was already three full years since my arrival in Jerusalem, and I had seen all the places which were the object of my pilgrimage, I felt the time had come, in God's Name, to return to my own country. Fifteen miles after leaving Hierapolis, I arrived in God's Name at the river Euphrates, and the Bible is right to call it 'the great river Euphrates.' It is very big, and really rather frightening since it flows very fast like the Rhone, but the Euphrates is much bigger."(18)

 

Now we come to one of my favourite passages in all of EGERIA'S TRAVELS: her description of how fasting during Lent in Jerusalem is done. My parishioners have heard this before:

 

"These are their customs of fasting during Lent. There are some who eat nothing during the whole week between their meal after the Sunday service, and the one they have after the service on Saturday in the Anastasis. They are the ones who 'keep the week'. And, though they eat on Saturday morning, they do not eat again in the evening, but only on the next day, Sunday, after the dismissal at 11 o'clock, and then nothing more until the following Saturday, as I have described. The people here known as 'apotactites', as a rule, have only one meal a day, not only during Lent, but also during the rest of the year. Apotactites who cannot fast for the whole week in the way I have described, eat a dinner half way through, on Thursday; those, who in Lent cannot manage this, eat on two days of the week, and those who cannot manage this have a meal every evening. No one lays down how much is to be done, but each person does what he can; those who keep the full rule are not praised, and those who do less are not criticized. That is how things are done here."(19)

 

I read this passage to my congregation at the beginning of every Lent, with emphasis on the words: "Each person does what he can; those who keep the full rule are not praised, and who do less are not criticized." Can we improve on this rule of Fourth Century Jerusalem as described to us by Egeria, brothers and sisters?

 

Egeria follows with an outline of what might be called the "Jerusalem Typicon".

 

Egeria's concluding, and my favourite passage, in the entire book, has to do with the language of worship, and is as follows:

 

"In this province there are some people who know both Greek and Syriac, but others know only one or the other. The bishop may know Syriac, but he never uses it. He always speaks in Greek, and has a presbyter beside him who translates the Greek into Syriac, so that everyone can understand what he means. Similarly, the lessons read in church have to be read in Greek, but there is always someone in attendance to translate into Syriac so that the people understand. Of course, there are also people here who speak neither Greek nor Syriac, but Latin. But there is no need for them to be discouraged, since some of the brothers or sisters who speak Latin as well as Greek, will explain things to them."

 

This is the last page in Egeria's manuscript. The remaining pages are lost. Can we not learn something from Fourth Century Jerusalem? "so that everyone can understand what he means", "so that the people understand.". I guess this is my favourite passage because of our motto at St. Joseph of Arimathea Parish, the only all-English language Orthodox Church, of thirty, in Toronto:

 

"Yet in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice I might teach others also,m than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue."(20)

The Seventh Century monk Valerius of Galicia wrote a letter in praise of the most blessed Egeria to the monks of his monastery:

"In the strength of the glorious Lord, the blessed nun Egeria set fearlessly out on an immense journey to the other side of the world. Guided by God, she pressed on, until after a time, she reached what she had longed for, the most holy places of the Birth, Passion and Resurrection of the Lord, and of the bodies of countless holy martyrs in many different places.

 

We cannot but blush at this woman, dearest brothers, we in the full enjoyment of bodily health and strength. She transformed the weakness of her sex into iron strength, that she might win the reward of eternal life. Though a native of ocean's western shore, she became familiar with the East."(21)

 

I would like to conclude with two thoughts by the English pilgrim, Stephen Graham, taken from his book, WITH THE RUSSIAN PILGRIMS TO JERUSALEM:

 

"A strange thought entered my mind as we bent down to enter the Holy of Holies, the Life Giving Tomb; that Mary, the Mother of God was the first pilgrim to that place, and, up until that moment, at least, we were the last." (22) and:

"I have seen many people who have not been to the Holy Land but I have never seen one who ha been once, who did not wish to go again." (23)

 

That would certainly include me - especially knowing that Orthodox have to do everything three times, and I have been to the Holy Land twice!

 

We Orthodox say: whoever desires to be baptized, whether ever baptized with water or not, has baptism of desire. Whoever desires to pray, has already begun to pray, by that very desire; and whoever has wished to go, has already started on pilgrimage. We are all pilgrims here below, for the Christian seeks the city, the heavenly Jerusalem, whether he ever visits the earthly one or not.

 

             FOOTNOTES

 

 1.         The Fathers of the Eastern Church, Robert Payne

 2.         Egeria's Travels to the Holy Land, John Wilkinson

 3.         With the Russian Pilgrims to Jerusalem, Stephen Graham

 4.         The Pilgrim's Way, John Adair

 5.         ibid.

 6.         Hebrews, 11:13. "They were strangers and Pilgrims on earth."

 7.         Egeria's Travels to the Holy Land, (Valerius of Galicia)

 8.         Egeria's Travels to the Holy Land

 9.         ibid.

10.        The Holy Land, Vassilios Tzaferis

11.        Egeria's Travels to the Holy Land

12.        ibid.

13.        ibid.

14.        ibid.

15.        John 20:19. "Then the same day at evening, being the day of the week, when          the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews     came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you

16.        Egeria's Travels to the Holy Land

17.        John 19:41

18.        Egeria's Travels to the Holy Land

19.        ibid.

20.        1 Cor. 14:19

21.        Egeria's Travels to the Holy Land, (Valerius)

22.        With the Russian Pilgrims to Jersualem, Stephen Graham

23.        ibid.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

 

THE FATHERS OF THE EASTERN CHURCH       Robert Payne, Dorset Press, New York, 1957      EGERIA'S TRAVELS TO THE HOLY LAND, John Wilkinson, Ariel Publishing, Jerusalem, 1981  

WITH THE RUSSIAN PILGRIMS TO JERUSALEM, Stephen Graham, Macmillian and Company, Longon, 1913

THE PILGRIM'S WAY, John Adair, Thames and Hudson, London, 1978        

THE HOLY LAND,  Vassilios Tzaferis, Athens, 1978                   

                                                                                  

Delivered at the Toronto Orthodox Conference, 1996