Thursday

Today was another of my favorite days. We went to a church that had an older church below it, and THEN had an even older ancient house that had become a mithraeum later. A mithraeum was a cave like place, because the myth associated with the god worshiped there took place in a cave. Basically some ancient man donated his house to be a place where people went to worship this god Mithos who was actually a Persian God that became popular with soldiers in the 3rd century AD. However it sounded more like a secret cult to me and only men were allowed. It was vastly different from the usual Roman worship of Gods and so it had an air of mystery, I believe even back then. Anyway the whole ancient building had just been walled off when the church was built above it so it was almost perfectly preserved because no one had access to go in and smash and deface things, it just sat untouched for centuries, well I'm not sure for how long but thats what i would guess. We saw altars and cave like rooms for worship and even the old church built atop it, which now has yet ANOTHER church on top of that, was very old from the 5th century AD and was amazing.

So, because they had kept building on top of each thing to get to the ancient part you have to go way way way way far underground through levels of different structures through the ages, its like it has a bunch of basements and sub-basements, but you have to remember when they were built they were all on GROUND LEVEL, and the ground level has just risen higher and higher putting them underground deeper and deeper as you get into the more ancient parts.

It was intensely eerie and magical being in these deep underground rooms of worship for this mysterious cult like group. Can you imagine?

Anyway, after that we went to this round church that had scenes of how the Romans tortured the Christians around the walls and it was extremely gruesome, people having hot lead being poured down their throats, being ripped apart or dumped into boiling oil, yes, those scenes. I thought it was strange the Christians chose to decorate their own church like this, but the last panel did show their triumph over it all. It was still a rather disturbing visit for me.

I wish I had more time but we have to go so I hope that was enough.