St Marys Church Dubai
Athens capital of Greece but, more importantly, we have entered into the world of the New Testament where St Paul and his companions established the first Christian communities throughout his four missionary journeys.
When St Paul first came to Athens it was predominantly a city which worshipped pagan gods. St Paul was taken before the city council at the Areopagus Hill, a rough outcrop of limestone rock from which he preached the Gospel message to the Athenian philosophers (Acts 17:16K21).
We begin our Christian pilgrimage with a brief tour of Athens including the Acropolis, where we will spend time reflecting at the Areopagus where St Paul delivered his famous sermon about the identity of "the Unknown God" (Acts 17:15K34). Visit the Ancient Agora and the Plaka (Old Greece), and explore the Parthenon.
Journey out to Ancient Corinth where the apostle Paul lived for almost two years, teaching the people the Word of God and converting many. We visit the ancient ruins and see the site where he preached the Gospel from the Rostrum. Also visit the Peirene fountain, and the 6th century BC Temple of Apollo before an outdoor Mass in this stunning pilgrimage setting, in the outdoor area where St Paul preached. Finally we come to Cenchreae, the ancient port from where Paul said farewell to the believers and departed for Ephesus (Acts 18:18). The Corinth Canal is a canal that connects the Gulf of Corinth with the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea.
It cuts through the narrow Isthmus of Corinth and separates the Peloponnesian peninsula from the Greek mainland, thus effectively making the former an island.
The canal is 6.4 kilometers in length and only 21.3 meters wide at its base.
Earth cliffs flanking either side of the canal reach a maximum height of 63 meters.
Aside from a few modest sized cruise ships, the Corinth Canal is unserviceable to most modern ships.
The Corinth Canal, only completed in the late 19th century. It now has little economic importance.
An effort was made to build it in the 1st century AD. Construction finally got underway in 1881 but was hampered by geological and financial problems that bankrupted the original builders. It was completed in 1893, but due to the canal's narrowness, navigational problems and periodic closures to repair landslides from its steep walls, it failed to attract the level of traffic anticipated by its operators. It is now used mainly for tourist traffic.
Ancient Corinth Museum
The museum is loaded with artifacts .
A lot has been excavated a Corinth including the headless statues. Ancient Corinth. Peloponnese. Greece. View of part of the northwest stoa of the Agora
Ancient Corinth was one of the most influential Greek city states in antiquity. The Romans razed the city in 146 BC; it was then rebuilt under Julius Caesar as a Roman city and prospered as the regions capital. One of the Greek buildings which the Roman colonists restored for their use was the Apollo Temple, possibly the most imposing piece of architecture of Hellenistic Corinth. It had been built in the mid sixth century B.C.
The Acropolis of Athens is an ancient citadel located on a high rocky outcrop above the city of Athens and containing the remains of several ancient buildings of great architectural and historic significance, the most famous being the Parthenon. Completed in the middle of the 5th century BC, the Parthenon is the centrepiece of the Acropolis and dedicated to the goddess Athena, whom the people of Athens considered their patron. Construction began in 447 BC when the Athenian Empire was at the height of its power.
The Areopagus translated "Ares Rock" (Romanized to “Mars’ hill"). It is north-west of the Acropolis in Athens. In classical times, it functioned as the high Court of Appeal for criminal and civil cases.
The Areopagus, like most city-state institutions, continued to function in Roman times, and it was then that the Apostle Paul delivered his famous speech about the identity of "the Unknown God." According to the biblical account (Acts 17):. The Erechtheion or Erechtheum is an ancient Greek temple on the north side of the Acropolis of Athens in Greece which was dedicated to both Athena and Poseidon The apostle Paul traveled throughout Greece converting both Jews & gentiles. The 1896 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the I Olympiad, was a multi-sport event held in Athens, Greece, from 6 to 15 April 1896. It was the first international Olympic Games held in the Modern era. Because Ancient Greece was the birthplace of the Olympic Games, Athens was considered to be an appropriate choice to stage the inaugural modern Games. It was unanimously chosen as the host city during a congress organised by Pierre de Coubertin, a French pedagogue and historian, in Paris, on 23 June 1894. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) was also instituted during this congress. The Theatre of Dionysus Eleuthereus is in the South slope of the Acropolis and is a major open-air theatre and one of the earliest preserved in Athens. It was used for festivals in honor of the god Dionysus. Theater of Dionysus in Athens could seat 75,000 spectators. The structure dates back to the fourth century BC but had many other later remodelings. The Temple of Zeus at Olympia was an ancient Greek temple in Olympia, Greece, dedicated to the mythical god Zeus.
The temple, built between 472 and 456 BC, was the very model of the fully developed classical Greek temple of the Doric order.
Work began on this vast edifice in 515 BC during the reign of the tyrant Peisistratos, who initiated the building work to gain public favor. Although there were several attempts over many years to finish the temple, it was not completed until 132 CE by the Emperor Hadrian. Although begun in the 6th century BC, it was not completed until the reign of the Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD. In the Hellenistic and Roman periods it was the largest temple in Greece.
The 104 columns, each 17 meters (56 feet) high, of the temple were made of Pentelic marble. Only 15 of the Corinthian columns remain standing to give a sense of the enormous size of the temple which would have been approximately 96 x 40 meters (315 x 130 feet) in size.