January 16th

By 9 AM this morning, we were leaving Delphi and heading towards Meteora,..but not without a stop at the historical Thermopylae (which means Hot Gates, named so because of the hot springs found there)! At Thermopylae is a statue erected in honor of the 300 Spartans (…yes the 300 like “300” the movie starring the dreamy Gerard Butler 300) who fought to the death trying to hold off the Persians from conquering Greece. King Leonidas dismissed most of his army after realizing that a traitor had helped the Persians flank them and stood strong at this narrow, fortified passage with just his small army. These men were very proud and brave having responded to the call for surrender of “Give us your weapons!” with “Come and get them!” This is relevant to our course because it celebrates the bravery of these soldiers, who gave themselves completely to their nation. This rhetoric is transferred to Jesus and His death. Jesus stood with His values and was crucified for it. Just as the Spartans fell (on the surface, a defeat but on a deeper level very symbolic for the Greeks) Jesus fell but as a martyr which is obviously very important in the Christian religion. 

Finally we made it to Meteora where we had the opportunity to go to another monastery. St. Andrew’s Monastery sat atop one of the glorious rock columns overseeing the beautiful mountains and town below. Inside this isolated monastery, we felt the beautiful peace, interpreted the ornately painted Biblical stories within the Church, and saw the relic of St. Andrew. We learned, through one of the depictions of Jesus’s life, about a subtle difference between the Eastern and Western interpretations of Jesus’s death. The depiction showed Jesus opening the door to the underworld, reaching out to Adam and Eve, and bringing them up to God’s Kingdom. The Greek Eastern Orthodox view of salvation was explained to us as Christ saving all through His death, thus using His own death as a tool for salvation. The Western notion views Jesus’s actions towards God either as Jesus paying for our sins and thus restoring our relationship with God, or as Jesus helping with the balance of God’s wrath and mercifulness as He steps in and takes the wrath of God and extends His mercy to us.

– Lexis Julsrud-Wertjes