In the Steps of St John the Apostle

Saturday, 21 August 2010. The Thomson Celebration is in Kusadasi, Turkey. The main tour of the day will be going to the ancient city of Ephesus, but having been there twice already (links to relevant blog entries at the end) we are today going to see the remains of the basilica and the tomb of St John the Apostle who came to live here and perhaps wrote his gospel here.

Moored on the opposite side of the wharf was a huge cruise ship of the Celebrity-X line. A Turkish dance troupe was doing their stuff on the dockside, but I'm not sure whether they were for the other ship or for us or perhaps weren't all that bothered and would do their stuff for anyone who showed an interest...

And before I get loads of emails asking about that really weird hat the chap in red is wearing, if you look again a bit more closely you'll see that it is a woman standing behind him! Her sleeve is the same colour as the ship and even I looked twice when I saw it! Looks a bit like a fish with a bird's legs standing on his head...

So we lump ourselves onto a coach and sit looking bemused at the staggering amount of people who seem unable to understand the need to find a bus marked with their own ship's name or the correct number before our guide decides he's got enough of us to go and we set off on our semi-biblical morning.

The first stop is at the golden statue of the Virgin Mary on the hillside leading to her house, which again we have visited before and the links are below, should you be interested. The statue was the gift of an American Society and that's as much as I had an interest in knowing before the marvellous views over the steep drop on the other side of the road took my attention. No doubt the guide told the rest of the bus load the date it was built, the material, the weight, how many mules it took to bring it up the hill etc...

But I had found something else to look at and it was a sight missed by the vast majority of those whose attention was making the guide think "Hey, these dates are really grabbing them! I must look up some more for later on in the tour..."

On the hillside opposite is the Odeion or Small Theatre close to the entrance to Ephesus. It was built as a council chamber aound 150 BC and was originally roofed and seats 1400 people. The city of Ephesus continues to the left and then round away from our viewpoint around the edge of the hill against which the Odeion is built. Hey up! They are all heading back towards the bus! There's only three of us have bothered to look this way.

The Basilica of St John was built over the remains of a first century AD temple around 530 AD by Emperor Justinian, who you may remember from an entry of a few days ago, was also building Hagia Sophia and the water cistern at Istanbul at the time.

This is a partially reconstructed wall to give some idea of how the basilica may have looked. I'd recommend a visit to the Sacred Destinations web site for anyone interested in reading further. They also have a photograph of a model of how the basilica once looked.

There were several rebuilds of the city of Ephesus. The first city was on top of the hill on which the basilica stands, in the heart of what now is a ruined fortress. The famous ruined city we visit today is the third city and the modern one, close to this hill, is now called Selçuk.

The Tomb of St John the Apostle. The central dome of the basilica was placed over the tomb. A small grating can be seen to the left of the photo. Behind this again is a rectangular grated hole with steps leading down, presumably into the chamber of the tomb. St John is the only one of the saints whose body has never been claimed by any church. The legend is that on entering his tomb whilst alive, an intense light prevented the other apostles from following him. When the light dissipated, so had all sign of him. Just a dust was left, floating in the tomb. Manna... The tomb was opened in the reign of Constantine the Roman Emperor. No body or relics were found.

The size of the basilica was such that if still standing it would today be the seventh largest basilica in the world. It fell into ruin with the decline of Ephesus and was converted to a mosque in 1330 only to be completely destroyed in 1402 by the Mongol horde of Timur or Tamerlane who had conquered almost as much of the world as Alexander and was likewise termed "the Great". He had been through Delhi and Moscow and was on his way back from Persia when he passed this way and the story goes that the Ephesians were so nervous they sent all their children to process out of their open gates, singing. Tamerlane is reported as saying "What is this noise?" and then commanded his nomadic horse warriors to ride down and kill the children under the hooves of their charging mounts. There is no way to play down the horror of that act.

Some ancient wall paintings depicting saints are on display in situ - in a small room, almost a cave. However they can only be seen from inside and you are not allowed in. To facilitate viewing a large mirror has been placed on the rear wall but in reality, all you see is your reflection - silhouetted against the bright doorway whilst all the surrounding detail is pitch dark by comparison. I took a photo but only saw the painting on the left once we were home and I had fiddled for quite a while with Photoshop! The painting on the right can vaguely be seen, but the head is obliterated by the glare of the reflected doorway.

Recent excavations have revealed this baptismal pool.

From the basilica site you can look down to an earlier site. The Temple of Artemis was one of the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Destroyed by earthquakes and looted for building materials there are just a few scattered stones and one reconstructed pillar. A link to a previous visit is below.

Previous related entries from this blog:

Turkish Delights
The Awe-Inspiring Ephesus
The House of the Virgin Mary
The Temple of Artemis

Return to Ottoman Treasures Index page