Day 15 - Kavalla

Today we focused on the city of Phillipi. We began the day by going to take a look at the ancient harbor of Neapolis that is here in Kavalla, and we saw a church that is allegedly on the place where Paul took his first step into Europe. We also saw some aqueducts in town and made a quick stop at a museum. Then it was off to the remains of the ancient city of Phillipi.

(The ancient harbor of Neapolis)

Phillipi was the first major city in Europe that Paul came to and worked. It was in Phillipi that he met Lydia, it was in Phillipi that he was thrown in prison for casting out a demon. It was in Phillipi that the prison that Paul was in was hit by an earthquake, but by not escaping he kept the guard from committing suicide and then converted him. And the book of Phillipians was written to the church in Phillipi.



The city itself was founded by Phillip II of Macedon (Alexander the Great's dad) because there were some very wealthy gold mines in the region. And there was also a huge battle where Mark Antony and Octavian (who eventually became Cesar Augustus) fought Brutus and Cassius for the future of Rome. Mark Antony and Octavian won so the Roman republic was dead forever and from then on (after Octavian defeated Mark Antony) Rome would always have Emperors.


Before we saw the actual city of Philipi we went down to the river to the spot where it is pretty likely that Paul met Lydia and baptized her. It was pretty cool to see, they have a little baptismal in the river now and there is a really beautiful church there too. After that we went up to the archaeological site.

(The section of the river where Paul met Lydia and baptized her)

There has been a lot of archaeological work done on the city which was cool to see, especially after seeing how much stuff in Turkey hasn't been done. We saw the theater, and had a few performances, (Dr. Rigsby sang a love song to his wife Donna, then we had a worship song in Chinese and one on Korean.) Then we saw the commercial agora, which was where the demon girl followed Paul and Silas shouting "These are servants of the most high God!" then an annoyed Paul cast the demon out. We saw the area where the judgement seat was at the agora, where Paul and Silas were pulled and then sentenced to prison, and then we saw the prison that they were probably in (there are a few hypothesises about that) After that we hiked up to the top of the Acropolis, which was a pretty good hike, it was really cold out today, but by the time I got to the top (about 30 minutes) I had taken of my coat, my sweater, my hat, my glove (I had lent my other glove out to someone,) and was just in my tee-shirt.

(Paul and Silas' prison)

From on top of the Acropolis our teacher, Gordon, gave us the layout of the battle between Mark Antony, Octavian, Brutus and Cassius, and we were able to see the different areas where the armies were laid out, their advantages and disadvantages and how it all played out. Then we hiked back down, picked up the folks who didn't want to do the hike from the coffee shop and loaded the bus back to the hotel. All in all a good day.

(The plain where the battle of Phillipi took place.)

Tomorrow we are going down to Thessaloniki, with stops at Apollonia and Amphipolis along the way, and tomorrow night I'll be posting from Thessaloniki. Until tomorrow, thanks for reading.