IN THE NAME OF GOD

 Walking around Thessaloniki, I was struck by the things people and cultures have done to one another in the name of their particular God.  The Macedonians (central Greece) were “pagans” who worshipped numerous gods until Paul and the apostles came to Greece and converted many to Christianity.  The churches here are Orthodox.  (The Christian church centered in Rome became the Catholic branch.)

We visited two old churches in Thessaloniki—the more famous Church of St. Demetrios, and the beautiful, small Sophia Church.  Demetrios is the patron saint of Thessaloniki; he was martyred in the fourth century during the crusades.  The first photo shows the Church of St. Demetrios.

In an interesting mix of cultures, Sophia, the Greek goddess of wisdom, is often referred to as the bride of Jesus or the Holy Spirit.  The present church was constructed in the eighth century, on the site of an earlier church destroyed in an earthquake.  This photo shows the chandelier hanging inside the dome of the Sophia Church.

We stumbled upon an interesting church or monastery, but I have been unable to discover its name or function.  I did find the art to be very beautiful.  The photo on the right is a painting on one wall of the courtyard.  The other photo shows a ceiling painting. 

As a historical review, you may recall that throughout the 1100s and 1200s there were several major Crusade expeditions (eight in all)—violent, bloody conflicts launched by European (Catholic) Christians against the growing power and influence of the Muslims moving up from the Middle East into Turkey and Greece.  Ultimately the Muslims prevailed and the Turks controlled much of Eastern Europe for several centuries.  (The Muslims also controlled Spain via Morocco.)  The churches were converted to mosques, and minarets were added to the existing structures. 

Thessaloniki was also home to a strong Jewish community.  When Jews were expelled from other European communities, most notably Spain, they were welcomed into the Thessaloniki community.  Until World War II, that is, when Germany invaded Greece, and the Jews were exported to concentration camps in Poland. 

We visited the Jewish Museum where the lengthy and impressive history of the Jews in Thessaloniki is chronicled along with the sad demise of these people and their culture.  According to one estimate, only about four percent of the Thessaloniki Jewish population survived.  One poster noted that before the war, there had been approximately 10,000 Jewish children in Thessaloniki, but only 58 of them survived.

Is there a different God for each of these religions—Christian, Muslim, or Jewish—or do we all worship the same God by different names and means?  Does worshiping differently make one person less important than another?  Does the fact that someone worships God by a different name give others the right to take his or her life?  If God is a God of love, how have so many taken the lives of others in God’s name?

In a final note, there are many monasteries scattered throughout Greece.  We sailed past Mount Athos in the Aegean Sea.  According to myth, the Virgin Mary somehow landed on the shores of this peninsula, so it is a holy site.  Ironically, no women are allowed to visit Mount Athos, which is populated by monks in a number of monasteries. If you look closely at the center of this photo, you can see one such monastery nestled into the mountainside.