Pope Benedict XVI Blog

And Then There Were Three: The Light of Orthodoxy Flickers in Turkey

Inside the Vatican
- by Dr. Robert Moynihan: Istanbul, Turkey - Day 2

November 27, 2006

You were the invisible ladder between heaven and earth.
You set our souls on a voyage
to seek the pure and the grand.
Hiding our dreams in your warm embrace,
you gave us wings to travel all over the world...
Oh! How your pleasant figure withered so suddenly.
How the waves drowned your thunderous voice.
And now you stand dead alive, our ill-fortuned mother,
Expecting a bell to signal your resurrection.

-- Anonymous poem by Orthodox theologians, "To Our Mother, the Theological School of Halki"

I was late.

The ferry for the island was leaving at 9AM, and it was already 8:15 when the phone rang in the hotel room. "Are you coming, or not?" Joshua Trevino asked. "The ferry leaves in 45 minutes..."

"Be down in seven minutes," I said.

And so I was.

Joshua's father, the Reverend Eben Trevino of the Russo-Carpathian Orthodox Church, and his mother, Diane, along with Jerry Tatum, also a Russo-Carpathian Orthodox, had already gone down to the harbor when Daniel Schmidt from the Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and I joined Joshua in the hotel lobby.
more...

posted by Dr. Denice Hanley, DPM, M.Div. @ 1:21 PM