We are visiting Thessaloniki, following in the footsteps of St Paul. The Epistles may not be our compass point (we are using Mark Mazower’s Salonika: City of Ghosts, a history-cum-travelogue, as guide) but the figure of the burly and hot-tempered martyr casts a long shadow over this city.
It was in Macedonia that Christianity first arrived in Europe and it fills the 14th-century monastery of Vlatadon, with its beautiful display of gold-leafed icons and vaulted ceilings.
In 51 AD Paul preached here (it was a temple back then) about the end of the world and the coming of the Messiah. His fiery words must have inspired members of the small Jewish community in this multicultural port city: he told them about Jesus of Nazareth and his extraordinary prophecy of glorious and eternal happiness for the poor and meek of this world.
Benedict XVI, in his slim little book about St Paul, quotes St John Chrysostom to explain what it must have been like to be in the Apostle’s audience: “in the same way that fire, in setting light to different materials, burns ever stronger… so Paul’s words won over to his cause all those with whom he came into contact.”
