It happens all the time in Jordan: You’re cruising on some road, gazing up at the looming hills, when, without warning, the ground on one side falls away. Right then, you realize that you’re actually creeping along an impossibly steep palisade, and that the real view is in the ravine below. That was the experience of our tour group as our bus pulled up to the ruins of Machaerus. This was the fortress where Herod Antipas imprisoned and executed John... Read more
She had a winning smile. As an 11-year-old who had years to go before growing into her adult teeth, she could hardly help that. But, at least in the beginning, she also had a winning sales strategy. “A gift for you,” she said as she trotted alongside me on the dusty path through Petra. She handed me a booklet of postcards. What the heck, I thought, and handed her a dinar, the going rate for such a trinket. “No,” she... Read more
Like “fundie” and “papist,” the label “Melkite” began as an insult. Deriving from the Arabic and Syriac words for “royal” or “imperial,” it was coined by Syriac and Armenian dissenters to poke fun at those Christians who accepted the dictates of the government-approved Council of Chalcedon. Its meaning boiled down to “those who kiss the keister of the State.” History has a sense of humor. Melkite Greek Catholics, who have continued to follow many Orthodox customs even after returning to... Read more
A couple of days ago, I became the owner of a shemagh. A shemagh is the Jordanian version of the kefiyeh, or cloth headdress worn by Arab men. I would say the proud owner, but I have a sense of having come by it in a less than strictly honorable way. If I couldn’t have pulled it off an enemy whom I slew in a blood feud, I could at least have bargained for it furiously in one of those... Read more
Here’s one fact about Bethabara, or Bethany-beyond-the-Jordan, the narrow plot of desert real estate where Elijah was assumed into heaven, where John the Baptist proclaimed the Kingdom of God, and where he baptized Jesus: it’s rustic. You’ll see bees buzzing in thickets of reeds hemmed in by bare rock mesas. You’ll see the domes of churches belonging to several denominations. Depending on what items of clothing pilgrims choose to leave on under their white baptismal robes, you might see a... Read more
My first positive act as a visitor to the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan was to get myself thrown out of the Dushara Ballroom of the Amman Sheraton, where I was staying. It was 1:30 AM, jet lag had me in its grip, and my room’s Wi-Fi log-in was refusing to recognize my password. I took the elevator to the lobby and heard “Staying Alive” blasting from a mezzanine up half a flight of marble steps. As a New Yorker born... Read more
Finding a Christian church in Amman is the easiest thing in the world – provided you’re not too picky which church. Estimates of the numbers of Christians in Jordan range from a high of 390,000, or 6%, to a modest 186,000, or 2.8 %. Beyond dispute, however, is their variety. Jordanian Christians come in all flavors, including Greek Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox, Melkite Greek Catholic, Armenian Apostolic, Maronite Catholic, Latin-Rite Catholic, and Anglican. The churches have synchronized their liturgical calendars in... Read more
Given a less spectacular landscape, I would probably have skipped the meal. Over the previous night – my first in Jordan – jet lag had left me just three measly hours of sleep. One morning of wandering, slack-jawed, around the ruins of Umm Qais, an ancient Greek hill city overlooking the Sea of Galilee and the Golan Heights, had used that up handily. When the tour bus carted us happy pilgrims away, I was already well conked out. The next... Read more
The day after IS terrorists beheaded 21 Coptic Christians on a Libyan beach, all of Turkey wore black – in memory of Ozgecan Aslan, a university student who was murdered, allegedly after frustrating a rape attempt by a minibus driver. Ghastly as the crime was, the aftermath was even worse. Desperate to hide the evidence, the alleged killer burned the body – with his father’s help. In my village, the turnout was impressive. Young Turks – you should pardon the... Read more
I’ve been warned that wearing a cross openly in Turkey means asking for trouble. There’s good reason for thinking so. The Republic was conceived in war – the War of Independence, in which several Christian nations grabbed at Ottoman territory – and birthed before the muzzles had begun to cool. To Atatürk’s victory in that war modern Turkey owes its very sense of itself. If the Pew polls and the attacks on churches and the use of Christians as stock... Read more
Diary of a Wimpy Catholic
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