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Home , Silifke, Thecla

Entrance Fee - 3 TL Getting There - About 3 hours from Incirlik. Go on your own Church Cave or with Outdoor Rec on our Trip. Physical Difficulty - EASY of St. and stroller friendly. St. Thecla is an early Christian and a marriage at the age of 18. She converted to disciple of St. Paul. Persecuted for her beliefs through Paul’s preaching, re- by the Romans, she sought shelter in a cave nounced marriage and devoted her life as a in Silifke. Above the cave where she hid, the virgin for Christ. Byzantines built a church dedicated to her By two miracles, she was saved from called Ayatekla, that is now in ruins. The certain death. First, Paul was ordered to be cave beneath remains and is a place of pil- scourged and banished from the city of Iconi- grimage for . um for his teaching, and Thecla was ordered The following history of St. Thecla is burned to death. But a storm providentially from the website, The Ephphatha Coffee- extinguished the flames, and she escaped Corner Ministry of Dr. Jeffrey & Angie Goh. with Paul and went with him to Antioch in “Thecla was a saint of the early Christian Pisidia. Second, in Pisidia she was thrown Church, and a follower of Saint Paul. She is to the wild beasts and was again saved from not mentioned in the New Testament, but the death by a miracle. After this she went to where the Apostle was, and finally to where she lived and died a hermi- tess. She was the Paul is untouched, while Thecla’s image tion of the Acts first woman evan- has been disfigured. The eyes are scratched of Paul and gelist and labored out and the upraised right hand has been Thecla led to a in the work of erased. To the original creators, Thecla and great venera- Christian mis- Paul were equally authoritative. To those tion of Thecla. sion, having been who later vandalized the images, we easily She was called encouraged by St. see the narrow-minded spirit of intolerance “Apostle and Paul to proclaim in which only the male could be apostolic protomartyr the Gospel. and authoritative. Consequently, the female among wom- On the walls image has been blinded and silenced. Reflec- en.” Not only of the Grotto of tions on the New Testament, too, often bring was the veneration of her especially great in a St Paul in Ephe- up stories of Jesus empowering and uphold- number of Oriental cities, but her popularity earliest record of her comes from the apocry- sus, there are paintings of Paul and Thecla ing the apostolate of women in the midst of appeared very early also in Western Europe. phal and Thecla, a document of portrayed side by side. These images have male discontent. Christians who have moth- Parishes are named after her in the West. the 2nd century. Out of the living tradition of generated a great deal of interest. In his ers and sisters, wives and daughters need to The Greek Church celebrates her feast on the early church to the present, the following book In Search of Paul, John Dominic Cros- seriously face a question of fundamental hu- 24 September and gives her the title of “Pro- records have captured our interest: san reports that both images are of the same man dignity and justice: How do they really tomartyr among women and equal to the Thecla, raised in a wealthy pagan family height, meaning that they were of equal im- treat women in their lives, at home, in church, Apostles.” In the Western Church, her feast in Iconium (), was very well-educated portance. Both have their right hands raised in society? Are women less clean, less worthy, day is 23 September – the First Virgin Mar- in the pagan and poetry, and in the teaching gesture, meaning that both less equal than men? tyr.” promised to Thamyris, a pagan prince, for were of equal authority. But, the image of In the Eastern Church the wide circula-

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