May-June 2010: Norway
Since the last report, your pilgrims rode their bikes to Larnaca Airport, and after some adventure with getting the bicycles on the airplane, they flew to Norway. They arrived just in time for Norwegian National Day, the 17th of March. That morning, they received a Norwegian language crash course (refresher) at breakfast with their dear friends Svein and Kerstin. Then came the big parade with music, flags and the beautiful local costumes. Later that day, they went to Lia Gaard—a Christian family retreat center in Koppang.
The highlight of the stay in Lia was the dedication of the Orthodox Chapel of St. Fotini, a beautiful building in Byzantine style. It was about seven years in planning and construction. When your pilgrims first visited Lia in 2003, the directors, Sigmund and Ingeborg were holding family retreats centering on the theme of the woman by the well. Although they had not spoken to any one about it, they were planning to build an Orthodox Christian chapel dedicated to her. But they did not know her name, or that so much of her life story has been passed down through tradition in the Orthodox church...until your pilgrims mentioned these things in conversation. A few years later, they received an invitation--and plane tickets--from Lia to attend the dedication of the chapel.
Fotini is the baptismal name of the Samaritan woman by the well described in the Gospel of St. John. In the Orthodox tradition, she is considered „equal to the apostles“ since she recognized Christ as the savior and brought the Gospel to the people of Samaria. Her story is the first description of the Good News being brought beyond the confines of the Hebrew nation. At the end of Goethe's Faust, she is depicted in heaven, together with Mary Magdalene and Mary of Egypt as one of the three archetypal representatives of penance and forgiveness who serve God in bringing repentance, forgiveness and grace to the world.
The dedication was officiated by an Eastern Orthodox heiromonk from Hurdal and Oslo, Father Johannes. It included not only the blessing of the chapel, but also the blessing of „Jacob's Well“ which was dug nearby, and also of the „Bjorn Spring“ which sprang up during construction of the road up the Bjorn Hill to the chapel. There were also a number of lectures and presentations, and your pilgrims composed and sang a song dedicated to St. Fotini. (The text of this song is at the end of this report.) The very next day after the dedication, a group of eastern Christian refugees from Eritrea came to Lia for a prayer service and a visit to the chapel.
Soon afterward, there was a seminar on eastern Christian spirituality at Lia led by Peter Halldorf, a preacher in the Pentecostal church in Sweden and the leader of a community dedicated to bringing Protestant and Orthodox traditions together. Can the Eastern Christian practices and traditions be cultivated in the Pentecostal/Protestant environment, outside of the Eastern Orthodox or Coptic Churches? Dear reader, we leave this question open. One thing was quite clear, though: Peter was speaking to a largely Protestant and partly "pietistic" audience. When he spoke of holiness, of sacred time, or sacred pictures, of the transformation and sanctification (theosis) of the human being, he touched on themes that were difficult for many in his audience to understand or accept. Nonetheless, they are themes of vital importance. When we fully understand that we were created in the image and likeness of God, and that the purpose of our lives is to restore them—to become like God and to act like God—then our lives are changed on a very deep level.
Your pilgrims traveled south to Christiansand and boarded the ferry for Denmark. More about that in the next report!
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Fotini
She came at noon in the heat of the day.
She came athirst for water.
She came from a people lost and confused.
She came athirst for life.
And by the well, the source of water,
She met the source of life.
She heard His voice in truth and in spirit.
He spoke to her, I AM.
She asked Him for the water of life.
He told her all she had done.
He spoke of the Father, of worship and truth.
She saw, He is the One.
She left her pot by the well that day,
Within her, a spring of living water.
She went to her people, bringing good news:
Come see the fountain of life!
Yes in her heart there flowed living water.
There sprang the source of life.
She hears His voice in truth and in spirit.
He speaks to her, I AM.
Yes in her heart there flows living water.
There springs the source of life.
Come hear His voice in truth and spirit.
He speaks to us, I AM.
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