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 Thessalonia.

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. 

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

This mountainous region is known for its gold. The city was abandoned in the 14th century AD after the Ottoman conquest.

At the ruins of Phillipi, we saw the place where Paul and Silas were inprisoned, 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 told him that they were Roman citizens and because of Roman law, they were imprisoned illegally. In the end, they were let go and they went back to the home of Lydia.

We visited the prison where they were held. 

We also visited another Christian basilica, a round one, which means it was built 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 the church was built by a certain bishop in memory of Saint Paul. They know that 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. Paul’s encounter with Lydia is described in the Book of Acts. 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.