The baptistery of St Lydia in northern Greece (2024)

Résumé

Constructed in 1974, the baptistery of St Lydia commemorates a founding event in Christian history: Lydia’s baptism by Paul in 49 or 50 AD in the river at Philippi. This article examines how this iconic baptism (considered to be the first on the European continent) was initially commemorated in the nineteenth century by Georgios Lampakis, a Greek scholar, who transformed water from Philippi into an artefact which was exhibited in an Athens museum. The construction of a church meant that something which could hitherto be moved between locations was monumentalized and embedded spatially; as a result of the international mobility generated by this baptistery, the area itself has been reclassified. This case study therefore provides a clearer understanding of interactions between the four principal parameters of religious tourism: the religious site, people, objects, and events.

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Entrées d’index

Keywords:

baptism, Greece, pilgrimage, religious minority, Christianity, Europe

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Plan

I. The first step: a museum collection

II. Ecclesiastical and political rifts during the creation of a religious site

III. An international destination

Conclusion

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Notes de la rédaction

Peer-reviewed article

Texte intégral

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1 https://www.alexpolisonline.com/2017/05/blog-post_128.html (in Greek, consulted 8 January 2020). Th (...)

1On Tuesday 23 May 2017, an article posted online described the climate of anxiety in Alexandroupolis, a town on the border with Turkey, caused by “an inexplicable number of South Koreans” arriving in the region via Turkey. The article sought to reassure people that these Asian tourists were landing at Istanbul airport and crossing the border by bus to visit the Greek religious site of the Baptistery of St Lydia.1 So what precisely is this tourist destination, unfamiliar to many Greeks, which according to local media sources attracts “Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican and Protestant believers”, and many more besides, “who travel thousands of kilometres each year from Europe and Asia” to pray there?

Map 1: Map of Greece showing sites affected by the development of religious tourism

Agrandir Original (jpeg, 680k)

2As a general rule, religious sites attract both believers and tourists with an interest in culture, history and art or who are keen to admire beautiful landscapes, thus blurring the boundaries between cultural trips, journeys of discovery, and pilgrimages (Nolan and Nolan, 1992). Four main types of site around which religious tourism in Greece is developing can be identified:

3a) historical sites associated with early Christianity such as the island of Patmos, where St John is said to have written the Book of Revelation. Patmos has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999.

2 Kotsi, who describes Mount Athos as “one of the most important Greek domestic tourism hubs” (2007, (...)
3 The quota system which has been introduced restricts the number of visitors; only one hundred Ortho (...)
4 See https://mountathosinfos.gr/el/pilgrims-informations/ (in Greek, consulted 12 January 2020).
5 See https://travel.oramaworld.com (in Greek, consulted 10 January 2020).
6 See https://www.pilgrimtours.gr/contents_gr.asp?id=96 (in Greek, consulted 10 January 2020).

4b) monastic centres such as Meteroa, and Mount Athos – a peninsula which has had autonomous administrative status since Byzantine times, and to which women and children are not admitted.2 Both sites were granted World Heritage Site status in 1988. They attract believers and tourists who appreciate the atmosphere and way of life there, and also the protected natural areas and the centuries-old buildings where there is “a fortune of treasuries”, according to one visitor to Mount Athos (Andriotis, 2009, p. 74). However, given the difficulties in gaining admission and staying on Mount Athos (a mandatory permit for a specified duration,3 the absence of hotels, the requirement to stay in a monastery and follow the monastic way of life, and the reluctance of some monasteries to admit non-Orthodox Christians), it is obviously only for the committed. Visitors must obey strict rules: no laughter, raised voices, singing, listening to music or swimming (ibid, p. 66). It is also forbidden to wear Bermuda shorts or to enter Mount Athos with gun dogs and firearms, as hunting is strictly prohibited.4 The rules around hunting reflect the way in which issues relating to leisure apply not only to foreign tourists but also to those living in neighbouring areas who might wish to pursue this activity on the peninsula. However, Mount Athos has not been spared from tourist parties; Greek tourism agencies offer “sacred itinerary” rambles (ieres diadromes) with mountain guides5and three-day packages with the second day including a visit to Mount Athos for men and a “floating pilgrimage” (proskynimatikos periplous) off the coast of the peninsula for female members of the group.6

7 See https://crescendo-escalade.com/escalade-meteores/ (consulted 12 January 2020).

5Meteora is different as its international reputation – cemented by a James Bond film shot there in 1981 despite opposition from the monks (Poulios, 2014, p. 77) – is the culmination of a long process of opening up. Although women were not originally admitted there either, the ban was lifted in the late 1940s, and steps and roads have been built to improve access to the site (ibid, p. 36). There are no fewer than fifty hotels in the surrounding area for visitors and sports enthusiasts as the Meteora massif (which has over 150 summits and more than 700 routes7) has become a top rock climbing destination.

6c) places of worship which house a miraculous icon or the relics of a saint, such as the church on Tinos, which is probably the most intensively studied Greek pilgrimage (Dubisch, 1995; Seraïdari, 2007 and 2019; Terzidou, Scarles and Saunders, 2017), but also the church of St Raphael on Lesbos (Rey, 2010) and the church of St John the Russian on Euboea (Seraïdari, 2020). The highest concentration of shrines can be found in southern Greece and the Greek islands. Although visits to Mount Athos and Meteora are more closely associated with a spiritual quest (speaking to the monks and seeking their advice, confessing to a priest and forging links with a spiritual director), hoping for a miracle cure and expressing prayers to be answered are the main parameter here. However, in this instance religious pilgrimages can also be combined with tourist activities due to the allure of the coast and hot sunshine.

7d) non-Orthodox places of worship, such as those found in Rhodes city, the island’s capital, which was granted UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 1988. The synagogue there is visited by the faithful and descendants of the ancient Jewish community in the town whose practices straddle the dividing line between pilgrimage and genealogical tourism (Sintès, 2010); but the town is also a place of Catholic religious worship – Catholics in Rhodes rely on “the influx of tourists to stand out in the local religious space” which is dominated by Orthodox Christians (Isnard, 2014, p. 194). While the presence of large numbers of tourists poses a threat to centuries-old religious buildings and a nuisance to people who live there or visit them in search of tranquillity or mystical experiences, it holds the key to breathing fresh life into places of worship belonging to religious minorities. Although the influx of tourists is often considered to be a necessary evil which nevertheless facilitates economic development, it also plays a much more important role in terms of minority religious heritage, as it gives these communities visibility.

8While this classification is based on distinguishing between different types of religious site, religious tourism can also be approached from an event-focused perspective. In the case of Greece, we can identify three major types of event:

9a) religious festivals (paniyiria). A church which does not have any relics or a miraculous icon can still attract a large number of visitors to its paniyiri – often accompanied in Greece by feasts organised in a central location where participants can dance, eat, and listen to music (Nolan and Nolan, 1992). The example of paniyiria on Ikaria is particularly interesting as they have earned a reputation in recent years for being trendy occasions with a vibrant atmosphere and have become a party event which can be exported to other locations, even abroad, such as the European capital Brussels (Seraïdari, 2018).

10b) tours of relics and icons. Visitors are not the only ones to travel spatially – relics and icons also embark on journeys. These “collections” (ziteies), which allow monasteries with debts to subsist, were very common under the Ottoman occupation between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The practice continues to this day: in 2007, the right hand of Spyridon, the patron saint of the Ionian island of Corfu, travelled to Russia for a month (Seraïdari, 2013, pp. 247-250). In this instance, religious tourism is not linked to a site, but to a sacred object which travels and attracts the faithful at each staging post along its route.

11c) displays of sacred objects. Although some Athonite monasteries have been exhibiting their precious objects in display cases since the late 1990s, these spaces are often impossible for pilgrims to access. Exhibitions organised in Thessaloniki or abroad in recent decades have made these objects accessible to a wide audience, including women (Alexopoulos, 2013). Thus, even “treasures” from monasteries can travel.

12When sacred objects (and sometimes even paniyiria) are transferred for a specific duration to a venue far removed from the place of worship in which they are usually found or with which they are associated, the event (be it devotional, festive, cultural or museum-centred) assumes greater importance than the religious site. Religious tourism is both site-specific and event-specific.

8 The concept of Europe did not, however, exist in Paul’s day. The idea of Europe as a “Christian lan (...)

13The baptistery of St Lydia, which is in the Western Macedonia and Thrace region, will allow us to study this interaction between religious tourism, places of worship, and events more closely. Built in 1974, it commemorates a founding event in the history of Christianity described in the Bible (Acts:16). It was by the river at Philippi that Paul is said to have baptised Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth, between 49 and 50 AD – an iconic baptism because it is believed to be the first baptism on the continent of Europe; by performing it, Paul supposedly laid the foundations for a Judeo-Christian European civilisation (Seraïdari, 2019, pp. 97-98).8 The current religious site was established in the mid-1970s to celebrate an event in the early days of Christianity. In this article, I examine the different stages leading up to the construction of the baptistery, beginning in the late nineteenth century, and also the issues and debate prompted by this place of worship.

14In his dual capacity as a theologian and archaeologist, Georgios Lampakis (1854-1914) was appointed director of the Athens Museum of Christian Antiquities when it was founded by the Society for Christian Archaeology on 23 December 1884 (Gratziou, 1987). Tasked with expanding the museum’s collections, Lampakis would regularly embark on trips to different locations both in Greece and the Ottoman Empire, including Macedonia and Thrace, which were not yet Greek territories. On 15 August 1902, he arrived at the archaeological site of Philippi after receiving communion in a neighbouring village. His account describes the emotional impact of this experience: by taking communion before the visit, he wanted to rid himself of the “weight of earthly things” before setting foot on “this historic holy soil” (Lampakis, 1906, p. 23). For while “the Jordan is sacred and holy (ieros kai agios)”, this river, which was used as the “first holy baptistery for the first Christian of the first Christian Community in Europe” (ibid, p. 25), was equally sacred and holy for Lampakis.

15At sunset, Lampakis photographed the spot on the river where he believed Lydia had been baptised. It appears that there was no building or other sign marking the event involving Paul. Lampakis writes in poetic terms of his despair when he discovered that there was nothing left at the site. Sitting amongst the ruins, he lamented “like a latter-day Jeremiah” the abandoned state of “this first Christian town” (Lampakis, 1906, p. 27). He searched “in vain” (a word which occurs frequently in his account) for physical traces of the presence of St Paul, Lydia’s house, and the prison where Paul was incarcerated, but nothing identifiable remained: “it was all in vain! Only the spirits of the first Christians hovered over the vast ruins of Philippi” (ibid).

9 Press article entitled “Holy Synod visit to the Christian Museum”, Asty, No. 5088, 19 March 1904, p (...)

16Lampakis did not merely photograph the landscape. Keen to preserve a tangible reminder of his visit, he filled a small bottle with water from the river, placed the item in the museum on his return to Athens, and recorded it so that it could be exhibited. The museum catalogue, which Lampakis published in 1908, mentions a section next to the display cases filled with traditional artefacts such as religious vestments and icons, which was entitled “Souvenirs” and contained, among other things, holy water from the river Jordan alongside the water from the river at Philippi (Lampakis, 1908, p. 20). The water from Philippi apparently attracted visitors’ attention. When the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece convened on 18 March 1904, its members stood in front of the bottle and were “filled with religious awe” (meta thrisketikou sevasmou); some members even kissed it when Lampakis explained its origins.9

17Seventy years elapsed between this form of veneration of a museum artefact and the construction of a church on the site in 1974. It is now difficult to assess the impact of Lampakis’ museum initiatives and to discover the fate of the bottle of holy water from the river at Philippi. But we do know for sure that the collection created by Lampakis was incorporated into the Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens in 1923, nine years after it was created. Georgios Sotiriou was the director of the Byzantine Museum when the transfer took place. Sotiriou’s approach to museology was rigorously scientific. In a text presenting the artefacts in the collection, Sotiriou (1924, pp. 74 and 87) pays tribute to the contribution made by Lampakis, but describes him as a “christianologist”. In this list of artefacts which were transferred, no mention is made of the devotional souvenirs assembled by Lampakis.

18Lampakis attempted to mitigate the absence of a commemorative building with an object imbued, in this instance, with a compensatory function. As we shall now see, the creation of a place of worship on the spot where Lampakis had found only ruins was dependent both on ecclesiastical initiatives and political circ*mstances.

19A religious site is located in time and space (regional, national and also ecclesiastical). The archaeological site of Philippi – which is associated not only with the apostle Paul but also with Alexander the Great (whose father founded it and after whom it is named) – is located 15 km from the town of Kavala and 18 km from Drama, another large town. This proximity often gave rise to rivalry in the past.

20Prior to his visit in 1902, Lampakis took communion at the church in Doxato, a village close to Drama. The region was incorporated into the Greek state in 1913, but the episcopal see of Philippi, Neapoli and Thassos was created in 1924. However, the see did not acquire this name until 1953, when the island of Thassos was brought under its episcopal jurisdiction. Initially, the see was not entitled to use the prestigious name “Philippi” in its title as there was an ongoing dispute with the neighbouring diocesan seat of Drama. The Archbishop of Athens was forced to intervene and law 5187 of 1931 settled the matter: the see, which was named after the regional capital Kavala, was given a new name which included not only Philippi, but also Neapoli, the ancient name of the port of Kavala, where St Paul disembarked (Kalomoiris, 2015, pp. 199-200). A see was therefore created and named in the 1920s and 1930s whose entire focus was on the past and on St Paul.

21In 1935, a religious ceremony took place in Philippi in honour of St Paul, and in 1951, a theological symposium was organised there to celebrate 1900 years since the arrival of St Paul, during which delegates visited the site at Philippi (Skaltsis, 2013). In 1967, a coup d’état took place in Greece and a junta of colonels took control. During this exceptional period, which lasted for seven years until 1974, a general trend could be observed in the Church of Greece to expand the number of local places of worship in order to push back against the influence of communism and atheism – enemies which the junta was combatting, according to its own self-justifying rhetoric.

10 Three Greek islands were granted this title by the Greek Republic (Mouliati, 2019): Tinos was the f (...)

22Two examples illustrate this trend – Tinos and Lesbos. On the island of Tinos in the Cyclades archipelago, the editor of a local newspaper had been petitioning for the canonisation (agiopoiisi) of the nun Pelagia since 1967, on the basis of her visions which led to the discovery of the miraculous icon of the Virgin in 1823. One of his arguments was the need to channel religious tourism (proskynimatiko tourismo) as a defence against cosmopolitanism and the imitation of “Western ways” which were an impeding the rediscovery of “the pure faith of the pilgrims of yesteryear” (Seraïdari, 2007, pp. 230-231). Pelagia was canonised in 1970. A year earlier, another petition from local people had been approved by the Archbishop of Athens; Tinos was declared a “holy island” on 28 May 1969 under the terms of an act passed by the Holy Synod, and a legal decree to this effect was also published in 1971.10 In 1971, the first celebration of a new saint took place on another Greek island – Lesbos – where St Raphael had been newly canonised in 1970 by the Patriarch of Constantinople (Rey, 2010, p. 193).

11 The “canonisationformalities” for St Lydia were apparently very brief. Baronius (who died in 1607) (...)

23On 23 May 1972, Lydia, who was believed to be the first Christian baptised by St Paul, was canonised by the Orthodox church (Skaltsis, 2013), although the Catholic church had recognised her as a saint since the 16th century.11 A local saint was therefore created against this backdrop, following in the footsteps of Pelagia, Raphael, and many others. It is also noteworthy that a significant number of places of worship, including those which currently attract the most visitors, were founded or consolidated (by titles or canonisations) during the period of junta rule.

12 An unsigned post relating to St Lydia on the website of the see of Philippi, Neapoli and Thassos: h (...)

24A new saint needs a new place of worship. The construction of the baptistery of St Lydia was announced in an article published in the see’s ecclesiastical newspaper in June-July 1972; not only was it easily accessible, but it also had a carpark and dormitories (anapaftiria) for visitors.12 Tourism development was therefore anticipated from the very outset.

13 For example, the presence of two basilicas outside the city walls could reflect an initial attempt (...)
14 An ancient cemetery existed in this location as sarcophagi and funerary monuments have been discove (...)

25The issue of authenticity was apparently barely considered. In this swampy region crisscrossed by many watercourses, how can the “river” on the banks of which the founding event occurred be identified? How is it possible to find traces of the apostolic narrative in an area which has been developed and urbanised for centuries? Various hypotheses were advanced13 prior to the identification of sites by the Greek archaeologist Dimitrios Lazaridis, which guided the construction of the current baptistery (Baslez, 2013, p. 194). In this respect, when Bishop Alexandros chose to build on this specific spot,14 he became a stakeholder in the localisation of the past by creating a religious site ex nihilo which transformed a biblical event into a tangible reality.

26The baptistry was inaugurated in 1974 by Bishop Alexandros, who was head of the see from 1965 to 1974. However, his successor, Bishop Prokopios – who was the incumbent from 1974 until his death in 2017 – turned this religious site into an international destination.

27People who visit the baptistery come less to honour a new saint than to relive “the creation of the early Christian world” (Lampada, Tzedopoulos, Kamara and Ferla,2019, p. 24). St Paul remains the key figure in this recent process of heritagisation. A tourism product based around his odyssey was first organised in Greece in 2001 (ibid). In June 2004, approximately one hundred French members of the Orthodox church were the first people to experience a ten-day Greek tour entitled “The Itinerary of Paul the Apostle” (Seraïdari, 2019, p. 98).

15 For example, the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon organised this trip in 2013 and 2015: https://sante.freju (...)

28On 28 June 2008, Pope Benedict XVI dedicated a jubilee year to St Paul to celebrate the bi-millennium of his birth. The next day, almost 150 Catholics (most of whom were Greek) gathered at the baptistery of St Lydia for a eucharistic celebration (Sauto, 2008). Although journeys in the footsteps of St Paul have existed for a long time in the Eastern Mediterranean (in Turkey, Palestine, Cyprus and Greece, with Athens and Corinth as their main destinations), the celebrations for the Year of St Paul have provided a fresh impetus and created a standardised format. French dioceses now undertake regular “pilgrimages in the footsteps of St Paul in Greece” with Kavala and the baptistery of St Lydia as their first stop.15

29The current octagonal building is designed to mirror the architectural models of early Christianity. At the centre, under the colonnade, is a marble baptistery for infant baptism. The decorative murals, stained glass, and mosaics are inspired on the one hand by the theme of baptism and water and, on the other, by the journey of St Paul (the floor of the narthex features a map depicting Paul’s itinerary). The church is located in landscaped grounds and a small oratory near the stream marks the spot where Lydia’s baptism is said to have been performed by Paul. This is where non-Orthodox adults who wish to convert to Christianity are baptised in an open-air ceremony and those attending can sit on tiered stone seating. They are mostly Albanians who have lived in the region for many years and they are baptised as a group on 20 May (the feast of St Lydia).

30The fact that the most sacred area of the site is outside improves accessibility as it allows non-Orthodox groups to carry out their religious celebrations more easily, as shown by the celebration of the eucharist by Catholics in 2008. Through these specific events, non-Orthodox pilgrims can forge links with the site and embrace it in ritual terms. Although non-Orthodox ceremonies are strongly criticised by fundamentalist Orthodox factions, the baptistery of St Lydia is now a locus for interfaith dialogue.

16 Unsigned post relating to the baptistery of St Lydia on the website of the see of Philippi, Neapoli (...)

31A new building, the St Paul Conference Centre, designed to operate as a scientific and spiritual hub, has been built within the baptistery precincts; it was inaugurated by the Patriarch of Constantinople on 20 May 2011. A year later, on 30 March 2012, following a request submitted by Bishop Prokopios to the Holy Synod, the baptistery of St Lydia was granted the honorific title of “holy pilgrimage” (iero proskynima). This decision was published in the Government Journal (No. 69).16

17 See for example: https://travel.oramaworld.com/pilgrimage-cruises/greece/on-apostle-paul-steps-pilg (...)

32In January 2011, the Prefecture of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace decided to lend its support to the development of cruise boat tourism in the port of Kavala. In 2012, twelve cruise ships docked there and 4,320 tourists disembarked to visit sites evoking the memory of St Paul (Stylidis, Sit and Biran, 2016, p. 663). In recent years, many Greek tourism agencies have been offering seven-day cruises “in the footsteps of St Paul”, including places traditionally associated with the Apostle (such as Kavala and Philippi), as well as others which have no connection with Paul but are major places of worship, such as the church on Tinos, or the church of St Raphael on Lesbos.17

18 https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1517/ (consulted 20 January 2020).
19 See the statement by the Mayor of Kavala in an interview on 20 May 2016, some months before the UNE (...)

33In 2016, a major event took place: the archaeological site of Philippi was inscribed on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The text published on the UNESCO website explained that the remains of Paleochristian basilicas dating from the 4th century ADconstitute an “exceptional testimony” to the early establishment of Christianity.18 Although the baptistery of St Lydia is a much more recent construction, it appears to have been a major asset in the submission.19 According to the application, the region of Kavala has been the third most popular tourist destination in northern Greece (Macedonia-Thrace) since 2003 in terms of tourism services and accommodation capacity. The text also highlights the need to develop cultural and religious tourism in the region because the baptisms celebrated there and the commemorative masses in honour of St Paul are “important elements of the intangible heritage of Christianity” (Hellenic Republic, 2015, p. 265).

34In conclusion, this baptistery is a “place of memory” which territorialises a biblical event. With its construction in 1974, Paul’s act (which brought Lydia into a new religious community) was monumentalised and rooted in a specific place. This topographic creation facilitated openness to international mobility and tourism. This topographic creation facilitated openness to international mobility and tourism.

35We have identified four parameters which structure touristic-religious flows:

36a) popular sites which function as regional resources and as promotional arguments;

37b) people who travel (visitors) and those who welcome them (hosts and organisers);

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Notes

1 https://www.alexpolisonline.com/2017/05/blog-post_128.html (in Greek, consulted 8 January 2020). The post states that 48% of South Koreans are Christian (approximately 24.7 million people) and that the country’s Orthodox population is served by an Orthodox see. Although these figures are inflated, it is true that there has been an upsurge of Christianity in South Korea since the nineteenth century, unlike in Japan and China (Luca, 2004). The influx of Asian Christian pilgrims to Greece from Korea and China is a recent phenomenon (Lampada, Tzedopoulos, Kamara and Ferla,2019, p. 23).

2 Kotsi, who describes Mount Athos as “one of the most important Greek domestic tourism hubs” (2007, p. 49), has studied the “floating pilgrimage” organised off the coast of the peninsula so that women can attend a mass celebrated by Mount Athos priests, venerate relics, and buy religious objects. With regard to the ban on children, boys under the age of eighteen are admitted if they are accompanied by their father: https://mountathosinfos.gr/el/pilgrims-informations/ (consulted 10 January 2020). Andriotis (2009, p. 78) mentions that during his stay, he met a group of eleven pupils from a nearby village in Chalkidiki who were visiting Mount Athos with their fathers and teacher.

3 The quota system which has been introduced restricts the number of visitors; only one hundred Orthodox and ten non-Orthodox visitors are admitted per day “so that the serenity of the monks is not disturbed” (Mylopoulos, Moira and Parthenis, 2019, p. 102). According to this article, which refers to the idea of “the carrying capacity of a specific site or the host community”, tourism “overload” would harm not only the monks’ way of life but also their buildings, and the tourist experience would become less intense if crowds congregated there (ibid, p. 103).

4 See https://mountathosinfos.gr/el/pilgrims-informations/ (in Greek, consulted 12 January 2020).

5 See https://travel.oramaworld.com (in Greek, consulted 10 January 2020).

6 See https://www.pilgrimtours.gr/contents_gr.asp?id=96 (in Greek, consulted 10 January 2020).

7 See https://crescendo-escalade.com/escalade-meteores/ (consulted 12 January 2020).

8 The concept of Europe did not, however, exist in Paul’s day. The idea of Europe as a “Christian land” was developed in the wake of Muslim invasions in the twelfth century (Placentino, 2019). For her part, Marie-Françoise Baslez (2013, p. 192, note 2) reminds us that the Christian community in Rome is older, as it dates “from 41 or 49 at the latest”.

9 Press article entitled “Holy Synod visit to the Christian Museum”, Asty, No. 5088, 19 March 1904, p. 2 (in Greek).

10 Three Greek islands were granted this title by the Greek Republic (Mouliati, 2019): Tinos was the first in 1971 (law 948), followed by Patmos in 1981 (law 1155), and Milos for its Paleochristian catacombs in 2009 (law 3801).

11 The “canonisationformalities” for St Lydia were apparently very brief. Baronius (who died in 1607) introduced her “in 1586, on his own authority” into the Roman Martyrology which he was revising (Englebert, 1988, p. 253).

12 An unsigned post relating to St Lydia on the website of the see of Philippi, Neapoli and Thassos: https://www.im-philippon.gr/index.php/mitropoli/topiki-agiologia/lithoi/149-agia-ludia (in Greek, consulted 20 January 2020). It is interesting to note that no mention is made of the recent canonisation of St Lydia in this text.

13 For example, the presence of two basilicas outside the city walls could reflect an initial attempt “to memorialize the baptism of Lydia by Paul” (Fant and Reddish, 2003, pp. 110-111). More specifically, archaeologists’ hypotheses refer not only to the localisation of the baptism of Lydia, but also to the burial place of St Paul himself, with some raising the possibility that his initial grave was not in Rome but in Philippi. (Baslez, 2013, pp. 206-207).

14 An ancient cemetery existed in this location as sarcophagi and funerary monuments have been discovered there (Fant and Reddish, 2003, p. 110). By leaving in situ these archaeological fragments whose presence is sometimes mentioned by visitors leaving comments online, the ancient and authentic aspect of the site is highlighted.

15 For example, the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon organised this trip in 2013 and 2015: https://sante.frejustoulon.fr/pelerinage-sur-les-pas-de-saint-paul-en-grece-2/; and the Diocese of Albi in June 2018:https://albi.catholique.fr/nourrir-sa-foi/pelerinages/313587-retour-de-grece-11-18-juin-2018/ (consulted 23 January 2020). Accounts of this type of excursion written and posted online by participants are a valuable resource for the study of religious tourism.

16 Unsigned post relating to the baptistery of St Lydia on the website of the see of Philippi, Neapoli and Thassos: https://www.im-philippon.gr/index.php/mitropoli/topiki-agiologia/ieres-mones/131-ludias (in Greek, consulted 20 January 2020).

17 See for example: https://travel.oramaworld.com/pilgrimage-cruises/greece/on-apostle-paul-steps-pilgrimage-cruise/ (consulted 29 January 2020).

18 https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1517/ (consulted 20 January 2020).

19 See the statement by the Mayor of Kavala in an interview on 20 May 2016, some months before the UNESCO decision: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGAzIOJSKms (in Greek, consulted 22 January 2020).

20 https://newpost.gr/ellada/5c12597f56dccb7e13e0f2b3/kabala-omadikh-baftish-enhlikwn-sto-ypaithrio-baptisthrio-ths-agias-lydias (in Greek, consulted 22 January 2020). See also the Orthodox Times website, which refers to the “second Jordan”: https://orthodoxtimes.com/lydia-the-first-european-christian/ (consulted 3 February 2020).

21 The visit by this Catholic prelate is part of a long series of engagements with Bavarian representatives (including the key figure of Hans-Joachim Fuchtel) focusing on including this religious site in the programme of pilgrimages offered by the Bavarian Tourism Organisation. See: https://www.makthes.gr/vayariki-stirixi-stin-anadeixi-ton-filippon-os-pylis-toy-christianismoy-146102 (in Greek, consulted 3 February 2020).

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Table des illustrations


		Titre	Map 1: Map of Greece showing sites affected by the development of religious tourism
		Crédits	Designed by Hervé Thery
		URL	http://journals.openedition.org/viatourism/docannexe/image/7547/img-1.jpg
		Fichier	image/jpeg, 680k

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Référence électronique

Katerina Seraïdari, «The baptistery of St Lydia in northern Greece», Via [En ligne], 20|2021, mis en ligne le 15 décembre 2021, consulté le 16 septembre 2024. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/viatourism/7547; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/viatourism.7547

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Auteur

Katerina Seraïdari

Docteur en Social Anthropology (EHESS, 2000). Researcher, Institute for Mediterranean Studies (IMS), Rethymnon (Greece) and CAS-LISST, Toulouse (France)

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Université BretagneOccidentale

http://www.univ-brest.fr/btuHaut de page

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