Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
A former Foreign Service officer has penned a book about his moving experiences in northern Greece.
By GAIL HOLLENBECK
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 5, 2001
SUGAR MILL WOODS -- In 1952, Bert Miller traveled along a portion of the ancient Roman road called the Via Egnatia that the Apostle Paul had traveled on his second missionary journey in the middle of the first century A.D.
Miller, then a U.S. Foreign Service officer, had been gathering information about Paul for the Library of Congress. He did not realize that when he and Dr. Ernest Saunders, a professor of Christian history, started the journey that he was about to have one of the most deeply personal experiences of his life.
Now, almost 50 years later, Miller has captured that day, along with his other adventures in northern Greece, in a book he is writing called Following Paul.
"When I had a great-grandchild born six months ago, I began thinking that I should write about my experiences for my family. My wife tells me I have had an interesting life. So, what I started to write about was that experience that meant the most to me, which was getting to know and love and understand Paul and his contributions. He has not been called the inventor of Christianity for nothing."
Now retired from the publishing business, Miller, 78, lives in Sugar Mill Woods with his wife of 56 years and keeps active by playing tennis and mentoring at Lecanto Primary School. He is also on the board of directors for the Marion Citrus Mental Health Center. Miller says he mentors because it is his turn to "give something back." Another way of giving back is to share his experiences in his book.
"I would hope that somebody would get the same kind of feeling that I did ... the whole sense of Paul and of faith and these poor people in this relatively impoverished village feeling so strongly about a man who had visited there 2,000 years ago."
What follows is Miller's account of that memorable day, taken from excerpts from his book:
As we walked back to the stream, Dr. Saunders described the arrival in Philippi of Paul and the others (Luke, Silas and Timothy). The apostle usually went first to a synagogue upon arriving in a new city. But there was none in Philippi, so the group of four went "on the Sabbath to a river-side where we supposed was a place of prayer" (Acts 16:13). Suddenly I knew where this was leading. Dr. Saunders, acknowledging my skepticism, admitted that a 2,000-year-old stream was a difficult phenomenon to accept. "But why not," he added. "This is the only stream on the plain ... Sure, its course has probably changed over the centuries ... This has to be the stream mentioned in Acts."
It was here that the four missionaries baptized the first Christian convert in Europe. Her name was Lydia ... Lydia and her family were made Christians at the little stream beside which we now refreshed ourselves.
The Via Egnatia took us straight through the desolate ruins that are Philippi today ... we came upon the only ruin of any height: the remnant of a church, dating probably to the Byzantine era. What caught our attention was the large, flat stone that formed the base of what had obviously been the threshold of the church's entrance. In its center was a deep concave depression, apparently abraded by the sandals of thousands upon thousands of worshipers entering and leaving the church over a period of several hundred years.
Miller and Saunders spoke with a Greek Orthodox priest who was picnicking nearby, asking him if he knew where the house of Lydia might have been. He pointed to the church ruins.
"Over the centuries," he said, "there were many churches built in Philippi and always on this exact spot. For on this very place was the home of Lydia ... the threshold stone, Lydia's entrance stone, was left in place to be a tangible remembrance of Lydia in each new edifice ... the wearing down of this entrance stone was begun by those who were baptized in the stream and by Paul himself. The stone is a sacred link to the apostle."
Traveling southwest from Philippi, the men passed through what was once Amphipolis, mentioned in the 17th chapter of Acts along with Apollonia and Thessalonica. All that remained was a massive stone lion and no mention of Paul having traveled through there. They looked for Apollonia but were not expecting to find much.
We drove over the crest of a hill ... suddenly before us was a village, alive and active after all the centuries ... we were led to the coffee shop and we asked if we were in Apollonia. "Vehveh!' (of course) several villagers answered ... We talked of Paul.
A man in his 80s told this story to the travelers, which they later recorded verbatim.
"Pavlos and the others came down the road just as you did. Their beards were dusty from the way and they were very tired. The little man, Pavlos, limped badly for his foot was cut. They rested by the big rock where you stopped. Then they washed the dust from their beards in the pond, and Pavlos washed his foot. They ate bread and some figs and drank water from the stream. People in the village began to gather around them. After a time, the little man, Pavlos, got up on the rock. It was not easy for him and the others helped him. The little man talked to us about things we did not understand but which we came to understand. And they stayed the night with us and left the next morning before the sun."
When the old man finished, Dr. Saunders and I exchanged glances, not of disbelief, but of wonder. To hear the old man tell of Paul's visit, spoken without pretense and with obvious sincerity ... was for both of us an unforgettable and very moving experience. How could we possibly doubt that what we had heard was the passed-along recollection of 25 or 30 generations of simple villagers, spoken with reverence and as if the event had happened yesterday.
It is extremely unlikely that any of these good people were direct descendants of those who lived there in Paul's time. Macedonia has been subject to migrations, both inward and outward, for centuries. However, it is possible that newcomers over the years learned of Paul's visit from those who had settled in the village earlier, and they in turn passed on the story to those who came after. And all took the memory as their own.
Dr. Saunders and I walked back to the boulder from which Paul had spoken ... we ran our hands over the cold stone, wondering if we were touching where Paul had stood. On the drive back to Thessalonica, I asked Dr. Saunders if he believed the old man's story.
"Absolutely," he said. "There is no reason for him to fabricate such an account. And certain things seem to ring true ... First of all, the account seems strictly factual and completely devoid of embellishment. Then there's Paul getting up on the rock to preach. That is so characteristic of what we know of the man. He would not have missed any opportunity to bring the word even to a small village like this. And then there's the admission that the people did not understand what Paul had to say. After all, they were pagans and Paul's message had to be totally alien to them. It was honest of the old man to admit that. Were he making up a fanciful little story to impress us, he probably would have said that, on hearing Paul, the people fell on their knees and were converted."
"Just think," I said, "if Paul had stayed longer in Apollonia and had established a larger community of believers, there might be an Epistle to the Apollonians in the New Testament."
"Remember when he said that they had come to understand what Paul had said," Dr. Saunders said. "Perhaps we've just heard his epistle."
We drove on to Thessalonica on the Via Egnatia, each deep in his own thoughts.