FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT IN THE HOLY LAND

The Commissaries of the Holy Land representing the Franciscan Provinces of Italy, Switzerland, Malta, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia, have met from 6th to 11th October in the island of Rhodes for their annual congress.

The Holy Land Commissariat of Malta was represented by Fr. Anthony Chircop ofm, Commissary, who was accompanied by Br. Lorrie Zerafa ofm.  They were guests of the Holy Land Custody, represented on the island of Rhodes by Fr. John Luke Gregory ofm, an English Franciscan from Sheffield, who ministers to the Catholic community in Rhodes and Kos.

Fr. John Luke is responsible for two churches in the Rhodes, namely the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria and the church of Saint Francis.  He also ministers to Catholics on the island of Kos.  Fr. Giorgio Vigna ofm, Commissary for Piemonte and Val D’Aosta, explained that the aim of the annual meeting of the Commissaries is that of encouraging the Franciscan friars who work in the Holy Land Custody, especially those who, like Fr. John Luke, work in the “periphery” of the Custody, and are in need to find support from their Franciscan brothers.  Fr. John Luke is the only Catholic priest on the island of Rhodes and has been working in the town of Rodos since 2004.

The guest speaker during the meeting was Fr. Fréderic Manns ofm, professor of Holy Scripture at the “Studium Biblicum Franciscanum” of Jerusalem. Fr. Manns touched upon the theme of Saint Paul’s presence in Jerusalem, on the occasion of the aftermath of the year dedicated to Saint Paul.

Fr. Manns is an expert on Judaism and has also published a book about Saint Paul’s Jewish origins and the importance of his biblical and rabbinical formation in Jerusalem at the school of Gamaliel, as a basis for his mission of evangelisation.

Fr. Manns spoke also about the pilgrimages to the sites connected to the journeys of Saint Paul in Turkey.  He has often led pilgrims and students of Holy Scripture on such pilgrimages to the ancient urban centres of the Roman empire in the Anatolian peninsula, that had been evangelised by Saint Paul.  As a direct result of his talk on the importance of visiting the places linked with Saint Paul in Asia Minor, the Commissaries decided to organise their annual meeting for 2010 by going themselves on a pilgrimage to Turkey.

The Commissaries also met the Custos of the Holy Land, Fr. Pierbattista Pizzaballa ofm, who makes it a point to be present for this annual appointment with the “Italian” group of Commissaries, and also goes to the other meetings organised by other language groups of Commissaries.

The Commissaries also toured the historical island of Rhodes, home from 1310 to 1522 to the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta.  The Knights of Saint John had to leave Rhodes in 1522 and from there they settled in Malta between 1530 and 1798, when Napoleon compelled them to leave the Mediterranean island.  In Rhodes the Knights venerated an ancient icon of the Virgin Mary in the shrine of Philermos.  They carried the precious icon with them to Malta, where until 1798 the icon was venerated in the Conventual Church of St. John in Valletta.  In 1798 the icon was taken from Malta and given to the Tsar of Russia and was then lost until it was retraced in Montenegro.

The Commissaries also visited the picturesque bay of Lindos on the south-eastern coast of Rhodes.  Rhodes is linked with the return of Paul to Jerusalem after his third missionary journey.  According to Acts 21:1 “we set sail, made a straight run for Cos, and on the next day for Rhodes.”

The island, and particularly the bay at Lindos, called Saint Paul’s Bay, is linked with the journey of the Apostle to Rome, according to Acts 27:4-7. “As the winds were against us we sailed under the lee of Cyprus, then across the open sea off Cilicia and Pamphylia, taking a fortnight to reach Myra in Lycia.  There the centurion found an Alexandrian ship leaving for Italy and put us aboard.  For some days we made little headway, and we had difficulty in making Cnidos.”  Now Cnidos was to be found on the tip of a peninsula north of Rhodes, and therefore tradition has it that the Apostle stopped on the island, in this sheltered bay of Lindos, since the sea was rough and the captain could only navigate around the island of Rhodes to the north and then turning south to Crete.