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BIBLICAL ANTIOCH BEGUILES WESTERNER WITH COLORFUL HISTORY, VIBRANT PRESENT

By Bill Gallagher

ANTIOCH, TURKEY -- For more than 6,000 years, this has been an urban center, a place where commerce and ideas flowed and cultures flourished. Antioch, on the banks of the Orontes River, got its Greek name after Alexander the Great conquered the city.

In 300 B.C., following Alexander's death, one of his generals, Seleucus, took command of the city and named it after his father, Antiochus. Soon Antioch had a population of 500,000 and became the major center of Hellenic civilization in the region. A massive temple was built at the Grove of Daphne dedicated to the god Apollo.

Antioch, ideally situated on the Silk Road connecting Eastern and Western worlds, became the center of a domain that stretched across Asia Minor and reached to what is now modern Pakistan.

Walking through Antioch's lovely bazaar with my wife, Elizabeth, my daughter Amy and her husband, Semir, the richness of the city's history and cultural diversity fill the air as much as the smell of the sweet spices and aroma of food cooking everywhere.

Through the Greek, Roman and Byzantine eras, the Persian invasions, the Crusades, the Arab invasions, the Ottoman Empire and a French Protectorate, Antioch has been a city of singular importance.

It was a crossroads where different cultures usually lived in harmony, but sometimes clashed in battles for control of the influential city.

In 64 B.C., general Pompey and his Roman Legions took Antioch from the Greeks and made it the capital of the newly formed province of Syria. The city quickly became Romanized. We walked through the ancient streets of Antioch, the city where Antony and Cleopatra came to frolic in the delightful Mediterranean climate.

In the markets, the breads, cheeses, olives, lamb and fish are surely the very same foods available for SS. Peter and Paul when they preached there. St. Peter took the new faith Jesus taught to Antioch on its first significant road show. It was here that the disciples of Jesus were first called Christians.

Christ's command to "go teach all nations" led Peter to Antioch, where the first non-Jewish members of what was considered at first a splinter sect of Judaism were accepted into the early church.

The base for Peter's proselytizing was a grotto on the slopes of Mt. Staurn overlooking Antioch. We entered the cave. We were the only visitors at the time. There is a simple altar and a stone-cut chair behind it. As we stood in the oldest still-active Christian church on earth, serenity blended with awe. A third-century mosaic covers the floor near a small fountain used for baptisms. In 1098, the Crusaders restored the cave and built a church facade in front of it. But from this utter simplicity and humble rock, the words Peter preached spread and the numbers of the faithful grew. Peter was the first Bishop of Antioch. From here, he moved on to Rome, where he was martyred and where a grand basilica bearing his name stands over his tomb. St. Paul spent spend considerable time in Antioch, about 150 miles east of his home town of Tarsus. Paul knew only Rome itself and Alexandria were more important for the empire than Antioch.

With people from so many nations and nationalities, beliefs and cultures drawn here, word of the new faith Paul propagated so eloquently quickly spread from Antioch throughout the empire. Little is left of Antioch's glorious days. Earthquakes, fires, invasions and routine sackings destroyed most of the Greek and Roman symbols of empire. But the Archeological Museum contains remnants of magnificent mosaics taken from Roman villas. The mosaics depict the good life in vibrant Antioch, and are among the most beautiful treasures and important works of art in Turkey.

Several pieces in the museum were taken from Samandag, a city 15 miles east of Antioch on the Mediterranean. It served as Antioch's port and seaside resort. Samandag is Turkish for "Simeon's Mountain," a reminder of an unusual form of asceticism practiced in early Christianity. St. Simeon the Elder built a pillar on the mountain where he sat preaching and fasting. Later, a follower known as Simeon the Younger built a taller pillar and a monastery. The hermits drawn here, known as the Stylites, came to live, fast and pray on top of these pillars. Many did not descend from their hermetic perches to the pleasures of terra firma for decades.

Modern Samandag is big on living, but fasting and prayer are less common than they once were. The roads in the city are clogged with trucks laden with local produce. You see horse- and donkey-pulled carts everywhere, and shiny new sports cars honking and trying to pass them. Samandag is filled with contrasts. The volcanic-sand beach stretches for more than three miles. On a clear day, you can look across the sparkling blue water and see Cyprus. The sunsets over the sea are splendid. Mountains line the coast. Glancing from sea to summits with a small twist of your head is breathtaking.

Bald Mountain, at 3,500 feet, is the tallest peak over the great beach. Legend has it that the summit was denuded of trees when Noah's Ark scraped the peak. As glorious as the scenery is, this remains one of the least-commercial stretches of the Mediterranean. Getting here is difficult, but a new airport currently being built in Antioch should change that.

Antioch and Samandag are in the Hatay, a 70-mile-long and 30-mile-wide region that had been part of Syria until 1939. The entire region had been under a French protectorate since the fall of the Ottoman Empire after WWI. Turks in Hatay got a majority in a plebiscite and the French approved the province being ceded to Turkey.

The Hatay is the most Middle Eastern part of Turkey. Everyone is taught Turkish in schools. Arabic is the language of the streets and spoken at home. There are many Arabic-speaking Greek Orthodox Christians, Armenians, pockets of Roman Catholics and even a small Jewish community. The Hatay is considered the most culturally diverse of all Turkey's provinces.

The Muslims here are of a distinct Shiite sect known as Alawites. Unlike the ostentatiously austere Shiites found among the Iranian clerics and in their theocracy, the Alawites of the Hatay are religious moderates who nurture benign indifference toward other beliefs. They rarely frequent mosques, offering the rationale that Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet and their most venerated figure, was murdered in a mosque, violating the sanctity of the building. Long ago, they chucked the ban on alcohol, although most consume it in moderation. The holy month of Ramadan is compressed into eight days of fasting.

My son-in-law Semir's family lives in Sutashi, a village on the outskirts of Samandag. The village is tribal in many ways, with large, extended families. Of the approximately 7,000 inhabitants of Sutashi, 700 are members of Semir's family. They are mostly farmers and small merchants. They lack many of our conveniences, but enjoy a life of family-centered simplicity and cohesion rarely found in more consumption-addicted societies. It is an economic struggle for many families, and young men often leave the village to work in Istanbul, Germany, Spain and Saudi Arabia.

Semir's family grows peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers with no pesticides or commercial nutrients. Food is fresh and flavorful, laced with herbs and rich olive oil. Nearly everything is eaten with a thick pita bread Semir's mother, Aliya, bakes. She does this in a wood-burning oven and shows great skill slapping the dough on the sides of the hot oven. The family grows yellow plums and mandalinas as cash crops. Mandalinas are marketed in the West with a Madison Avenue-coined name, "clementines." The little tangerines are found in U.S. markets during the Christmas season.

Amy had not been to Sutashi in four years, so a village wedding celebration was long overdue. About 300 people showed up at a reception hall in Samandag to honor Semir and Amy. The village women showered the couple with fresh rose petals, a fragrant tradition that makes confetti seem pedestrian. Amy was beautiful, Semir handsome. The band played for hours and everyone danced, including this old lame horse. It was great fun. The people were warm and generous. Semir's brother Ali made sure his father, Remzi, Uncle Mehmet and I got breaks from dancing in order to sip a little Johnnie Walker Red Scotch.

Semir's family made our stay most enjoyable, sharing everything they had. They are now part of our family, and are our greatest gift from Hatay.


Bill Gallagher, a Peabody Award winner, is a former Niagara Falls city councilman who now covers Detroit for Fox2 News. His e-mail address is gallaghernewsman@sbcglobal.net.

Niagara Falls Reporter www.niagarafallsreporter.com June 7 2005