As the millenium clock counts the final months leading up to the year 2000, Christians all over the world are preparing to celebrate this significant anniversary of their religion. Record numbers of pilgrims are expected to visit places of importance in the Christian religion, ranging from Jerusalem and the nearby town of Bethlehem where Christ was born in the east, to Rome in the west. Turkey played in important role in early Christian history and the spread of this religion westwards, and many biblical events and those of later Christian history took place here, above all the journeys of St. Paul.

St. Paul was one of the earliest converts to Christianity, either just before or within a few years of the crucifixion of Christ in 33 AD. Soon after his conversion he left his home town of Tarsus in Anatolia and travelled to Damascus and Jerusalem. Joining up with St. Barnabus and St. Mark he began his missionary journeys through Anatolia, founding Christian communities in the cities which they visited. Altogether he covered twenty thousand miles in these journeys, which also took him right around the Aegean coast and to Cyprus. He was eventually captured by the Roman authorities and taken to Rome, where he was executed.

Tourism companies are organising biblical tours on a large scale this year, many of them covering the routes taken by St. Paul in Turkey. St. Paul was born of a Jewish family in Tarsus, and was originally known by the Jewish form of his name, Saul. Although he was a Roman citizen he received a strict Jewish upbringing and may have been instructed by Gamaliel the Elder in Jerusalem. He was originally among the most fanatical opponents of the new Christian faith, but after a vision on the way to Damascus was converted. According to the account of this event in the Bible Paul was blinded by a light from heaven, and heard the voice of Jesus saying, ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?... Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told what thou must do.’ Paul remained blind for three days and was led into Damscus. Jesus instructed a man named Ananias to go and find him, saying ‘Go thy way, for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel. For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.’ Ananias found Paul and declared, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight.’ Paul’s eyes were opened, and he set out for Jerusalem.

Having with some difficulty persuaded the apostles that he was now on their side, Paul’s life as a missionary began. St. Paul made three missionary journeys, all of which took him through Anatolia.

The first journey began in Antioch (today’s Antakya) in southeastern Turkey, where with St. Barnabus and St. Mark he sailed to Cyprus, and from there to the port of Attalia (Antalya), where they travelled by road to Perge. They next travelled northwards to Pisidian Antioch (Yalvaç in Isparta), where Paul delivered his first sermon in a synagogue in 46 AD. Later the first church was constructed over this synagogue and dedicated to St.Paul. They then travelled on to Iconium (Konya), Lystra, Derbe (Karaman), and back to Perge and Attalia, where they sailed back to Syrian Antioch. Almost all the credit for the early spread of Christianity goes to St. Paul rather than the Apostles. The hundreds of churches built near Derbe alone illustrates the great impact he had, and today this region is known as Binbirkilise, which means A Thousand and One Churches.

His second and third journeys were longer, taking him further westwards through Anatolia to Ephesus on the Aegean coast, and encircling the Aegean before returning to Antioch. During these journeys which took place between 48 and 56 AD, he visited Ephesus twice, once in August 51 AD, and for the second time in 54 AD when he remained for almost two years. It was in Ephesus that he is thought to have written his Epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians and Ephesians.

In Ephesus St. Paul’s teachings began to attract the active opposition of silversmiths, traders in idols and others whose interests lay in pagan worship. They sparked off public demonstrations against him which finally forced him to leave the city.

Paul had been intending to make a fourth journey to Spain, but in fact his last journey was as a prisoner of the Romans. In 56 AD he was arrested in Jerusalem and taken back for trial in Rome, passing on the way through Caesarea, Sidon, Myra (Demre on Turkey’s southwest coast), Knidos (on the Datça peninsula near Bodrum in southwest Turkey), Crete and Malta. He and St. Peter were executed in Rome sometime around 62 AD.

* Şengül Gündoğan Aydıngün is an art historian