Antioch, Seleucia Pierea, Grotto of St. Peter and Tarsus
This morning we hiked the cliffs around the grotto of St Peter in Antioch/Seleucia Pierea. The Grotto’s name has more to do with it being the first community of believers to call themselves Christians than it does the apostle Peter himself. The hillside is full of tiny caves and niches that were used by later monastic communities.
From Antioch we drove north and then west along the Mediterranean. All throughout our trip there have been periodic police traffic stops on the highways and in the cities to check for masking and to check our permit to travel. Turkish citizens are on lockdown and their COVID rate has dropped steadily. They need a permit to travel and can only do it for necessities.
We stopped at an ancient Justinian bridge that was originally over the River Cyndus River which flows through Tarsus. Paul, originally Saul, was from Tarsus and was a Roman citizen and stopped here often on his journeys. The church built in his name in Tarsus in 1850 was an orthodox Greek Christian church and is now a museum. We saw the ruins of a Roman road and marketplace that would have been frequented by Paul or anyone living in Tarsus in the 1st century BC and AD. We also visited a mosque that was originally an early Christian church in 300 AD ( still looks more like a church than a mosque).
On to Derbe, Lystra (home of Timothy) and Iconium tomorrow, stops on Paul’s missionary journeys
