In the very first post on this blog, I made the comment that “for six weeks at the beginning of 2010, I will become radically dependent on other people and the providence of God.”  Little did I realize how rapidly I would realize the truth of my prediction.

Paris, it seems, shuts down if there is 2 cm of snow on the ground.

Today before venturing out to a café for my first hit of caffeine, I phoned the airline baggage hotline.  “No problem, your bag arrived last night, it will be delivered by noon.”  My friend offered to stay and wait for the delivery, so I sallied forth.  As a side note, the Metro system in Paris is fantastic.  There are 14 different subway lines, plus two different train companies.  There is a single ticketing system and there are several stations which allow transfers from Metro to RER without an extra fare.  According to one site, there is not a building in Paris less than 300 m from a station.

My first call was at Sainte Chapelle, which has been constructed by the order of St. Louis (aka Louis IX) in the 13th century to house relics.  Two-thirds of the stained glass windows which remain date to this time, and are the oldest in Paris.  After winding my way through the Metro I arrived to discover a sign — Fermée.  I asked the person at the door whether he thought it would be open tomorrow, and was rewarded with a shrug and the reply, “It depends on the weather.”

Fine.  On to the Eiffel Tower, although I had my suspicions.  Sure enough, I got some wonderfully monochromatic photos from ground level, but the elevators (and the stairs, although that was never a serious option for me) were closed due to snow and frost.

Well, then.  L’Arc de Triomphe should be weather resistant.  One or two transfers later and I emerged on to the street from the Metro station.  The Arc was there, sure enough.  I got what I hope will be some decent pics and then looked around for the ticket kiosk to buy admission to the roof.  Guess what?

After a brief detour for lunch and a session of puzzling over the map of the transit system, I headed towards Sacré-Coeur on Montmartre.  It’s built like a traditional Byzantine cathedral, but there was no possibility of confusing it for an Orthodox structure once inside.  The walls were bare stone except for the huge mosaic in the apse, which extended on the ceiling the length of the altar area.  The only other colour was found in the numerous side chapels.  As I walked in following the flow of tourists, I happened to turn back for a glance at the rear wall.  I was surprised to see an altar there, flanked with two mosaics.  Looking more closely, I realized that the mosaic on the left of the altar (i.e. on my right) was Christ calling the first disciples to “Come, follow Me and I will make you fishers of men.”  The icon opposite it depicted Christ lifting Peter out of the water as he was sinking.  For some reason, seeing these two icons of my patron saint really moved me.  Even yesterday at the Louvre, there were unexpected sightings of St. Peter.  Well okay, perhaps I should have expected to see paintings of the chief of the apostles in an art museum, but I certainly did not go looking for them.

While Sacré-Coeur is certainly big, the real treat for me came around the corner.  On approaching the basilica, I had noticed another, much smaller church across the street.  Across the street, but also 3 or 4 metres higher than street level where I was standing.  I followed the signs to St. Pierre de Montmartre which took me through a very scenic (and touristic) neighbourhood of Montmartre.  Art galleries, souvenir shops, restaurants, and not a few sketch artists who were very eager to do a caricature or serious sketch.  I wound up bantering with Luigi, but even after he realized he was not going to get any money from me he was willing to keep talking.  Charming guy, and did not mind posing for me to take a photo of him.  (In Egypt, I would immediately have faced a demand for money after taking the picture.)

Then I found St. Pierre.  The building suffered greatly under the Revolution, but was returned to use as a church in the 19th century.  It looks like the oldest of the furnishings are the paintings, of which at least one was commissioned in 1839 for the parish.  The stained glass windows, the pews, and the altar all seem to be of late 20th century provenance.  I noticed none of this at first glance.

My first impression of St. Pierre de Montmartre was that of silence.  The door was open, there was a sign requesting silence and respectful behaviour since this is a house of God, of worship, and of prayer.  There was not, as at Sacré-Coeur, a churchwarden hissing at the gentlemen who forgot to remove their hats.  There were not, as at Sacré-Coeur, hundreds of tourists murmuring and milling about.  There were two or three other people inside, so I slipped in, breathed in deeply, and began to look around.  Walking down a side aisle, I wound up at the side altar and noticed one of those Romantic paintings.  There was no indication of the artist’s name, but as I looked closer I realized that the figure warming his hands at the charcoal brazier was none other than St. Peter.  He was turned to face the maiden behind him to his left, and behind her in the shadows was a soldier.  I spend some time at that side altar, just sitting in the chill.

Eventually I got up and continued my tour of the church.  It was no surprise to see the statute of Peter seated on a chair holding two keys, with the inscription TU ES PETRUS ET SUPER HANC PETRAM AEDIFICABO ECCLESIAM MEAM.

Since all of my walking clothes except my outer fleece jacket are in my luggage, I got fairly chilly on the way back to St-Serge.  It was with some disappointment (but no real surprise) to learn that my bag had still not been delivered.  When I called the airline at 6:00 pm, I was told that the bag could not be delivered yesterday because of the snow, but that it was out for delivery right now and I should get it before midnight.  Hmmmph. After Vigil at St-Serge, I had dinner with Sharif and we got to talking.  Theories of biblical interpretation, a comparison of the banking systems of France, Canada, and Mexico, Mexican beer (they never drink Corona except as a last resort, rather like Australians and Foster’s) — the conversation wandered.  Eventually Sharif looked at the clock and said, “Oh yes, we were waiting for your luggage!”

Tomorrow morning, I plan to attend Liturgy at Saint Alexandre Nevsky Cathedral.  Before leaving, I intend to contact the airline and tell them I will be picking the bag up at the airport myself that afternoon.  Since I have bought a non-refundable train ticket out of Paris on Monday, I really do hope they will manage to contact the delivery company and have the bag returned to the airport for me.  (If things really work out well, perhaps they’ll even reimburse me the extra travel costs or at the very least give me a lift back into the city.)

Stay tuned!

Today I logged on to the airline website to check on the status of my luggage. It arrived over night at some point. Shortly after that, the airline contacted me to tell me the bag would be delivered this evening. Great news, I thought! On to the Louvre without having to worry about meeting the courier. After a few hours, it was time for coffee and some food. As we were sitting down to eat. Then the phone rang. Apparently they were a little more “efficient” than they had expected — except of course there was nobody there to receive it. We’ll be trying this again tomorrow. Today I also booked my ticket down to Bayonne, and from there I’ll hop a bus to St. Jean-Pied-du-Port. It means starting the walk a day later, but doing that will save me 30€. I’m willing to bet I’ll manage to spend less than that on a Sunday in Paris.

I arrived at l’Institut de Theologie Orthodoxe Saint-Serge in Paris just as the faithful were leaving church after the Liturgy celebrating the Nativity of Christ.  My friend Sharif is a student there, and after lunch at the Institute, he took me on a whirlwind tour of Paris — the highlight being Notre Dame, but which also included a visit to the cafe Deux Magots where the French existentialists used to loiter and drink coffee.  At that point I was in dire need of caffeine, so it was a welcome stop.

I actually arrived at the school somewhat later than I’d expected because I spent some time in the baggage claims department of the airport, trying to discover where my luggage was.  As it turns out, the airline did not lose my bag.  It’s just that I made a connecting flight in Amsterdam that my belongings did not.

Tomorrow, the Louvre!  And, hopefully, my luggage.

‘A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

* * * * * * *

T. S. Eliot published his poem Journey of the Magi shortly after he was baptised as an adult convert to Christianity.  A brief visit to your favourite search engine will reward you with some fairly decent commentaries on this poem.

January 6 marks the end of the “twelve days of Christmas.”  In the western Christian tradition,  the feast is known as the Epiphany, and the focus is on the adoration the Magi offer to the Christ Child.  In the Orthodox Church, the conclusion to the Nativity season is the Feast of Theophany, wherein we celebrate the baptism of Christ in the River Jordan.  In both cases, we see the inauguration of something new and the death of something old.

The Christmas carols I remember from my childhood sustained this understanding, but now it seems that nobody sings any more than the first and last verses of these hymns.  O Come O Come Emmanuel, Joy to the World, We Three Kings — these all tell it like it is.  No magic talking snowmen or flying reindeer here!  No surprise, then, to hear the following chanted in the Orthodox Church:  “Christ is born to raise up the image that of old had fallen.”

Likewise, in Orthodox iconography of the birth of Christ, there is a mirroring of themes and images from His burial.  The Virgin reclining occupies the same location within the cave as Christ’s body in the tomb, the presence of angelic beings, the figures outside the entrance.  To quote Eliot again, “this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.”

And then there is the Baptism of Christ.  As St. Paul wrote, “do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”  (Romans 6:3-4)

Today is also the day that I am scheduled to leave the comfort of home.  With the exception of a few days in Paris, I will spend the next six weeks trying to walk in newness of life.

‘A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’

My upcoming journey to Santiago de Compostela is not the first time I have undertaken religious travel. My priest never tires of telling me how fortunate I have been to have had all these opportunities, and this is a sentiment which several of my friends have also expressed. It’s a trade-off, I suppose.  Typically the people who tell me this are the ones who are married, have careers, and are raising families.

My first visit to an Orthodox monastery was at the invitation of my priest, who was going to visit his spiritual father.  A friend and I accompanied him, but even before we got to the monastery we had met the elderly Egyptian priest who had baptised him.  And then we arrived at our destination. My first meeting with Fr. Roman Braga is one which I shall remember for the rest of my life.

In 1999 I attended the SYNDESMOS XVI General Assembly held at Valamo Luostari in Finland. Following the assembly, I was one of sixteen people who took an optional journey through the western region of Karelia, ending in St. Petersburg.  One of the highlights of that trip was our visit to Valaam Monastery situated on an archipelago in Lake Ladoga.  The exact date of its founding is unknown – it may be that the first monastic was on the site as early as the 10th century, although the earliest written record of a community there dates to the 14th century.  It has seen some very hard times throughout the years, but following the end of communist rule the monastery was re-established in 1989.  When I visited ten years after this, there were over 100 monks and the community was growing.  (See photos from this trip here.)

On a trip to England to visit a friend, we spent a weekend at the Monastery of St. John the Baptist at Tolleshunt Knights and then drove to Holywell in Wales to visit St. Winefride’s Well

A friend and I did a road trip from Toronto to Los Angeles in 2001 to attend the National Convention of the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America.  It was a fantastic experience and along the way we managed to attend Liturgy at two different monasteries.  Holy Dormition Monastery in Rives Junction MI is a short six hours away and is a wonderful refuge.  We also stopped in at St. Anthony’s Monastery in Florence AZ.  One of these days I hope to find my way back there and spend more time.  (The Grand Canyon was also pretty cool, as was the Painted Desert.)

September 2002 marked the beginning of my seminary career.  St. Tikhon of Zadonsk Monastery was established in Pennsylvania in 1905 with the assistance of two men who were later recognized as saints:  St. Tikhon of Moscow and St. Raphael of Brooklyn.  The seminary was founded 34 years later to provide training for clergy.  By the end of my first year, I had begun to feel quite at home there.  The funny thing about feeling “at home” is that one is often blinded to the remarkable aspects of the familiar place.  Although I was aware of some of the history, I was taken aback by the Memorial Day Pilgrimage. My blasé attitude towards the monastery and school was confronted with the piety of the  thousands of people who came to St. Tikhon’s that weekend.

At the end of my first year at St. Tikhon’s, I was one of six seminarians who travelled to Greece in order to spend time on Mount Athos.  Several of the hundreds of photos I took can be viewed here.  It was here that I realized walking to a monastery was a much better option than taking a bus crammed with sweaty pilgrims.  I also spent a day walking half the length of the peninsula. Writing any more about this would be counter-productive.  If you already know about Άγιον Όρος I don’t need to say any more, while if you have no clue then my paltry words won’t help much.

The autumn after my graduation, I moved to Lebanon — specifically to the St. John of Damascus Institute of Theology at the University of Balamand.  The following nine months was an incredible time.  Visiting monasteries and parish churches in Lebanon was only the beginning.  While I was in the eastern Mediterranean region, I visited St. Katherine’s Monastery in Sinai.  I walked the entire length of the “street called Straight” in Damascus and visited the city of Antioch, where the followers of Jesus were first called Christians.  Qala’at Semaan is now in ruins, but I went anyway.  Before posing for a photo with what is left of St. Symeon’s pillar, I spent a few moments in prayer.  And then there was the ten days I spent in Istanbul.  Hagia Sophia is a museum now, but it still moved me to tears.  (Photos from all these travels and much more are on Flickr.)

Now the longest, most arduous journey to date lays before me. I leave in four more days.

Earlier I wrote something about the Way of the Pilgrim.  What I didn’t include was a discussion about where I hope to wind up after this.  Yes, I’ve made some plans which may turn into a career, but I’ve done that before.  “And whither then?  I cannot say.”

One of the few things of which I am certain is that the Way will only unfold before me to the extent that I am walking forward.  Pilgrimage is not something which one does once, adds to the list of tasks accomplished, and then forgets about.  Pilgrimage is a way of being in the world.  It is an acknowledgement that no matter how good the present moment is, it is nothing more than a way-station, a temporary stop along the way.  (For the curious amongst my readers, I heartily recommend perusing Leaf by Niggle.  If you aren’t able to purchase a copy or borrow one from a library, it is available here.)