Cappadocia

I have been married ten years, but can only just afford a honeymoon, so we went to Cappadocia. My wife, Presbytera Claire-Marie did not know anything about the destination until my eldest boy, Joshua, saw something about Turkey and blurted out "Oooh, that's where you are going......I not not supposed to say that was I?!!!!" Anyway, she didn't know that we were headed into the heart of Christian monasticism under the persecutions in the higlands of Cappadocia .

It is a strangely beautiful land, with thousands of caves in which the early coenobitic monasteries were founded, most notably by the affectionately called Cap Dads, especially Basil the Great.

The Cappadocian Fathers were a 4th-century monastic family, led by St Makrina to provide a central place for her brothers to study and meditate, and also to provide a peaceful shelter for their mother. Abbess Makrina fostered the formation and development of three men who collectively became designated the Cappadocian Fathers, Basil the Great who was the older of Makrina's brothers and eventually became a bishop, Gregory of Nyssa also became eventually a bishop of the diocese associated thereafter with his name, and Peter who was the younger of Makrina's brothers and later became bishop of Sebaste. These scholars along with a close friend, Gregory Nazianzus, Patriarch of Constantinople set out to demonstrate that Christians could hold their own in conversations with learned Greek-speaking intellectuals and that Christian faith was not anti-philosophical but was a thoroughly distinctive movement of learning, piety, and life-style - one best represented by monasticism. They made major contributions to the definition of the Trinity finalized at the First Council of Constantinople in 381 and the final version of the Nicene Creed which was formulated there.

You'll want some pictures....