Hello Everyone,
The first day of the new year was pleasant. The wet, cold flurries from yesterday left and the sun returned. It was 2 degrees Celsius this morning. I’m not fond of the metric system (I’m trying to be nice in saying I don’t like it at all). Two degrees is not so cold. To easily convert Celsius to Fahrenheit, double the Celsius number, then add 30. This morning the temperature was 34 (why does that number sound cold?). But the sky was clear and the sun was shining. We all seemed to have a good night’s sleep and were ready to go.
Today we visited the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul. We saw artifacts from several different cultures of the past, including Hittite, Sumerian, Egyptian, Anatolian, Jewish, Greek, and Roman. Of course, most of the items are looted from other countries, stolen in times of invasion and war. This seems to be a general practice around the world. But even thinking of using flash to take a photo in the museum is akin to a criminal act. Go figure.
Just before entering the museum grounds, we briefly stopped outside at the building of the Church of St. irene. I’m not sure who Irene was, however two significant points were made concerning the building.
The first is that the building of the Church of St. Irene was never converted to a mosque when the Ottoman empire took control in 1453 AD. It was used as an arsenal dump by the Ottomans. It was also used as a museum in the middle 1800s. Today the building is used for concerts because of its excellent acoustics. But you can’t get in, except by special permission. Go figure…Jesus really is standing at the door knocking, trying to get into His Church!
The second is that this building was the site of the second church council held in 381 AD. In that council, the church bishops expanded the teaching on the Holy Spirit in the Nicene Creed and dealt with two theological heresies (Macedonianism and Apollinarianism). Both heresies are off-shoots of Arianism. Apollinarianism is named after Apollinarius of Laodicea. He taught that Jesus Christ had a human body and a human soul but that He had no human rational mind because “the Divine Logos had taken its place.” The Council also created controversy by selecting Constantinople as second in importance to Rome. Both Rome (Italy) and Alexandria (Egypt) resented this action and refused to accept it. Go figure…some things never change. We are accountable to maintain a pure doctrine (and willing to work out disagreements) but it is usually the petty problems or church politics that does more to divide the Body of Christ.
After a quick bite to eat for lunch we made it back to the Ataturk Airport for our 2:15 PM “routine and uneventful” flight to Adana (and then the two hour drive to Antakya, which is ancient Antioch). We are going to wait until morning to visit the sites in Antioch because it won’t be dark then.
Jim
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