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Opinion

Seeking peace in Greece

An SMU assistant dean’s trip kindles hope for a scarred world.

Halfway between Athens and Thessaloniki, on the shores of the Pagasetic Gulf, is a mountainside city that graduates into Homer’s wine-dark sea, a place called Volos, home of the mythic characters Jason and the Argonauts, who, as the ancients believed, set sail from here in search of the Golden Fleece. Today, it is a vibrant town with an abundance of lethargic dogs, political graffiti and some of the world’s best coffee on every corner. I went recently to meet with more than 400 attendees of the International Orthodox Theological Association. The outcomes were both refreshing and profound, each contending with real world issues.

Dallas-Fort Worth has more than a dozen Orthodox communities, most affiliated with an international region where that particular church began — from Greek, Romanian and Coptic to Russian, Bulgarian and Ukrainian, among others. Today, in the U.S. and elsewhere, most congregations are composed of those ethnic or national groups, with a smattering of converts or those who married into the communities. Globally, Orthodox churches number somewhere near 300 million.

Traveling to Greece, one is struck by both the antique culture of Plato and Aristotle, and the Byzantine hierarchy of the Eastern Church. The remains of the ancient Greek world are among the most stunning examples of venerable art and architecture. And a climb atop the Acropolis in Athens is breathtaking and intense. To step among the ancient marbles where Socrates once taught conveys an overwhelming sense of meaning and presence that no high school textbook or college class can demonstrate. And crowding into any number of Orthodox sanctuaries, from roadside chapels to urban cathedrals, is a spiritually aesthetic experience all unto itself. Sacred spaces of worship, reflection and prayer are covered in icons, frescos and images bathed in royal blue and gold, often enshrined in darkened chambers that let traces of natural light in throughout the day. Incense and devotional candles proliferate and supply shops sell everything from priestly vestments to biblical myrrh.

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Converging on Volos, several hundred scholars, academics, priests, laity, poets, writers, musicians, composers, journalists, observers and others gathered together with a shared interest in Orthodox history and theology. We came from dozens of countries, all walks of life, and met to discuss, debate and argue the finer points of Eastern Orthodoxy and its engagement with the present world — a world being wounded by those who fail to meet together in peace, especially evident in Ukraine right now.

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We discussed everything from theological ethics, Byzantine chant and iconography to modern medicine, conspiracy theories and environmental stewardship in the Church. There were also debates about orthodoxy in the American context, the role of the body and sexuality, the perception of secularity, and the complex relationships that exist among political ideologies, the state and religious organizations. While it may be 6,000 miles away, the discussions among an ancient polity were on themes not that different from what we see in Texas, among politicians, school boards or suburban communities. I was appreciative for the rekindled confidence that such discussions can happen constructively, among diverse people of goodwill.

In the final days of the conference, a large group of attendees made a pilgrimage to Meteora, a medieval cluster of monasteries perched atop thousand-foot rock formations on the plain of Thessaly. The modern and ancient came together, tour buses ascending through a mythic Tolkienesque landscape, then three scores of attendees huffing while scaling hundreds of ancient stone steps. We finally entered van-sized chapels adorned in every nook with vibrant icons and melting wax candles, grayed by centuries of smoke. Outside the sanctuary, we stood atop an ancient pillar, transfixed in amazement at the landscape of vineyards, apiaries and guest houses, all situated among the jagged stone mountains that looked like coffee-stained teeth. In the distance, the ribbon of the Pineios river ran through the valley at sunset.

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I climbed with Germans, Americans, Belarusians, Russians, Ukrainians, Greeks, Italians, Ethiopians, Egyptians, Canadians and Romanians. Humans, brothers and sisters, with a common sense of our humanity. We sought common ground among differences, while a war with global implications raged a day’s drive north of us. And while that distance is like going from Dallas to El Paso, there an urgency about it among the pilgrims on the mountain that day — a desire to find clarity and certainty in a world that is strewn with complexity, informational saturation and uncertainty.

Back in Dallas, I have come to think about the way we go about testing the best ideas, by coming together with not just friends and colleagues and family, but the stranger, the foreigner, the unknown. It works best when we gather around a common table, with food and drink, even among divisive issues. It was, after all, the Greek philosopher Plato who wrote one of the greatest works of a philosophy, the Symposium, a sequence of speeches on love, which also happens to mean “drinking together.” And while most of us do not have the means of ending global strife, we are able to meet others in our own cities, neighborhoods, and homes, and find common ground and finally love in a world so easily torn apart by difference.

Anthony J. Elia is director of the Bridwell Library and associate dean for Special Collections and Academic Publishing at SMU Dallas. He wrote this for The Dallas Morning News.

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This column is part of our ongoing Opinion commentary on faith, called Living Our Faith. Find the full series here.

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