pat loughery

Day 4: October 23, 2008

Today was one of the days I was most looking forward to on the trip. We were to visit a number of early Christian sites in the Cappadocia region, a rich group of locations in which early Christians began to live as hermits and later were organized into monastic communities. The Cappadocia region produced some of early Christianity’s greatest characters.

We began in the Goreme Valley, where from the 2nd century CE onward, Christian hermits left more populated areas to live more simple, devoted lives in caves carved out of volcanic rock. In this valley there remain several hundred caves that have been developed over the centuries into living systems for individual and communities.

Early in its history, it became clear that with so many hermits in these caves there was need for a social structure, community clusters began to form and religious education facilities created. Each school taught an average of fifty students, and from early on, these communities carved living spaces, kitchens, worship spaces and the other necessities of life into the rocks so that complex living quarters evolved.

Several churches were carved into these cave areas and were decorated with elaborate paintings depicting the Biblical story, especially the story of the life of Jesus. These picture Bibles in stone were fascinating, and would have worked to ground believers in the full story of God. I was struck that the totality of the story was in front of the peoples’ eyes at all times (not just a few passages here or there). In many contemporary churches, the people only get a few verses of the Biblical story each week, and while they may be taught them in great depth, I find many people in these contexts who have a difficult time understanding how those few verses find their place in the entire story of God’s interaction with humanity. The paintings in those stone churches acted as a pictographic reminder of the complete story, and I can imagine that followers of Christ in those caves could find their place in the story.

I was disappointed that I wasn’t able to handle the full tour, however. There was simply too much climbing and uneven ground for me. I begged off early and sat with Mary Glenn to chat, and then watched a couple of semi-wild dogs play together, then took pictures of the grapes and flowers in the middle of a small field at the center of the main caves.

After the Goreme Valley tour we went to an underground city. It was an impressive site indeed. The local villagers had created a multilayered city underground to survive frequent warfare in the area. Archaeologists estimate that 5-10,000 people could survive in the cave system, which had rooms for sleeping, cooking, worship, and provided storage of animals, food and water. At one recent point in the past century, the cave allowed locals to survived for two full months when their enemy was above ground. More often, the cave city was used for shorter periods of time. I was able to see the first two levels of the system, but wasn’t able to go further down where other students say the passageways got more narrow and short.

We had an absolutely fantastic lunch buffet. It was easily the best food on the trip to date.

We also began a lecture by Father Varlaam, one of the Romanian Orthodox priests with us on the trip. The lecture was delivered in the bus as we traveled, with Mihai Pavel translating. Father Varlaam spoke about the early monastic fathers, and focused on the Cappadocian fathers, beginning with St. Basil the Great. St. Basil is notable for many things, among which are his practical concern for the poor, and being the first of the church fathers to recognize the need to organize monastic hermits into communities with a common way of life. St. Basil’s monastic rule directly influenced St. Benedict’s rule, which became the standard for western monasticism and still is today.

I had a short chat with another of our Romanian priests, Cipri, about Basil’s rule. It was, in Cipri’s opinion, a practical and well-balanced structure for community life. It contained much practical detail and showed a good grasp of human psychology. It laso elevated expectations for a devoted life, in particular calling men and women to celibacy and separating men and women into different monastic communities.

By this time on the day’s trip, my leg was in a great deal of pain. After what for me were two shortened site visits, the rest of my day was spent on the bus or close nearby as the rest of the students watched a 6th generation potter make his wares, visited the hermitic location of St. Simeon the Snake Healer, another monastic cave system and a well developed cave church.

One thing that continued to bother me during the day’s visits became most obvious at the location of St. Simeon’s cell. Simeon was one of the early hermits who escaped the city and its trappings in order to focus wholly on worshiping God wholeheartedly. He was soon pursued by disciples, and at one point spent a great deal of time living atop one of the stone fairy chimneys that are a striking geographic feature of the area in order to remain alone.

In this location, as I sat in one of the dozen tour buses and looked out the window at dozens of trinket sellers, I found it ironic that the very thing that Simeon had hoped to escape had indeed followed him here. The whole scene was incredibly tacky, and while I understand my fellow students’ desire to pick up gifts for their friends back home from these vendors in the desert, the contrast between Simeon’s initial desires and the end result of his life could not be more striking.

My day ended with a half-successful Skype video chat with my wife and son Brogan. Our hotel lobby’s Internet bandwidth was pretty well saturated with activity by students and by other guests, but I was able to chat with them. Somehow my wife’s computer speakers had been unplugged, so while we could both see each other, she could not hear me.

It helped me greatly to chat with my wife and tell her about the day and ask her for prayer. It was also fun to see that my son Brogan, now 2 1/2, still thinks the best way to participate in video chat is by making faces to see if Dad can emulate them. I did my best, which confused more than a few passersby in our hotel lobby who saw my facial expressions but couldn’t possibly know that I was playing with my toddler son.

I continue to reflect upon this monastic rhythm of life, beginning with hermits who lave society in order to worship God in private, but soon gather communities around them. Those communities grow and need pastoring and structure, so community Rules of Life are developed. Theological training is needed, so schools develop. The impulse of mission for God’s kingdom grows in the community, and soon monks are sent out into other parts of the world to bring the Gospel, and the story repeats.