Samaria excursion

Full moon hiding
in the clouds

Today is quite a confusing day ... we're celebrating several feasts all on the same day. Officially on the liturgical calendar it's the feast of the Visitation. But in the Holy Sepulcher it's the feast of Corpus Christi. In the parishes, everyone is celebrating the last day of the month of Mary with processions and litanies. Well everyone will be celebrating 2 or 3 feasts today so the confusion is commonly shared.

The weather was very pleasant though ... cloudy and a cool breeze. Good for excursions outdoors. And that was what we did today.

Jacob's well

Today we spent an entire day in Samaria. We visited Jacob's well where Jesus met the Samaritan woman. Usually no photos are allowed to eb taken of the well. But today we were the only pilgrims in the church and the guardian allowed us to take one family photo. It was incredible. Then we visited ancient Shechem the canaanite city mentioned in the Bible. Then as it was still early, we went to Sebastiya, the capital of Samaria during Jesus' time. We saw the Temple to the Roman Emperor "Sebastion" and then the little byzantine chapel all in ruins but which housed the remains of the beheaded John the Baptist before it was removed by the crusaders.

After that we went to the MC convent in Nablus to have lunch. We brought our own sandwiches and needed only a quiet place in their garden to eat. But the sisters cooked rice and curry for us. They were very generous.

Ruins of the church of St. John
the Baptist

After lunch we went to Mt. Gerizim, the holy mountain of the samaritans who used to have a temple up there. There are only 500+ samaritans left in the world. Up on the peak there is the remains of the byzantine church of the Theotokos built by Emperio Zeno in the 5th century after he destroyed the Samaritan Temple when the samaritans revolted.

Returning to Jerusalem at 4pm it was just time to join in the parish Mass of Mary and the procession of the statue around the Christian Quarter. Then June begins.