Today, we traveled from Thessalonika to Phillipi, where St. Paul first planted the seeds of Christianity in Europe. We are on a highway that looks similar to our US interstates. It is the Via Egnatia, which was built on the Roman road used by St. Paul to travel between Phillipi and Thessalonika.

When modern-day Greeks built this road, they uncovered cobblestones and mile markers used by the Romans. Initially, the Romans built it as a military road. 

So we are on our way to the ruins of Phillipi. We are driving east across the region called Macedonia (Macedonika) birthplace of Alexander the Great. This is not to be confused with the country North Macedonia,which is a Balkan country made up of Slavic people. 

The suffix ika added to a place or noun means lesser, such as a smaller city or lesser area, such as a region. 

We first went to the ruins of Phillipi, the first community of Christians in Europe. And the conversion and baptism of Lydia, the first European baptized. 

They named Phillipi after King Phillip, who restored internal peace to his country and, by 339 BC, had gained control over all of Greece through military and diplomatic means, thus laying the foundations for its expansion under his son Alexander the Great.

People know this mountainous region for its gold. After the Ottoman conquest, people abandoned the city in the 14th century AD.

At the ruins of Phillipi, we saw the place where Paul and Silas were imprisoned, and we saw the ruins of an early basilica, a Christian church in Philippi, showing later evidence of the seeds that he planted west for Christianity. 

Saint Paul, it appears, was the Johnny Appleseed of Christianity for Europe. 

This imprisonment was for a short time. According to the Bible, they prayed, and an earthquake freed them. The guard feared their release, so he was going to kill himself, but Paul and Silas told him, “Don’t harm yourself. We are here.“

Then they informed him they were Roman citizens and that Roman law had led to their illegal imprisonment. In the end, they were let go, and they went back to the home of Lydia.

We visited the prison where guards held them. 

We also visited another round Christian basilica; they built it for a martyr or someone special to the church. It has amazing mosaics on its floors. There is also a mosaic with an inscription, which says that a certain bishop in memory of Saint Paul built the church. They know this Bishop lived in the fourth century A.D. It is the earliest known church dedicated to Paul. 

We left the ruins and not too far away; we visited the place where Lydia was baptized. She was the first European baptized by Paul. The Book of Acts describes Paul’s encounter with Lydia. The stream where it happened is a cold mountain stream. Eighty percent of Greece is mountainous. 

They built a church at the site and there is a small amphitheater by the stream for local baptisms.

On our way back to Thessaloniki, we stopped in the port city of Neapolis, now known as Kavala. This is where Paul first set foot in Europe. It is an old city where the ruins of a city wall and Roman aqueduct still stand. 

This is also where there is an original section of the Via Egnatia, the Roman road mentioned earlier, that still exists. He used this road to travel to Phillipi.