A Pilgrimage Journeying through ancient Syria
and Lebanon and the Old and New Testaments.
Tracing our inheritance as heirs of the gospel.

TOUR LEADER PETER HOGAN


SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR CANON FRANK HARRINGTON

   Click To Download Brochure.             Booking Form.

Day 1      Tuesday 1 March

We meet and celebrate our Pilgrims’ Mass at St Dunstan’s Church before going on to Heathrow for our afternoon flight to Damascus. The flight time is about five hours. We will be met on arrival at Damascus Airport and taken to our hotel for a three night stay. Dinner this day will be served in flight

Day 2     Wednesday 2 March

We begin our pilgrimage in Syria in the Christian quarter of Damascus. one of the world’s oldest cities continuously inhabited for more than 3000 years. In Straight Street leading into the city from Bab Sharqi (a city gate) is the House of Ananias, who had the unenviable task of approaching “Brother” Paul. We shall celebrate our mass in the chapel named after Ananias. St Paul’s departure from the city was equally inauspicious – in a basket lowered over the city wall and there at Bab Kisan we shall remember him. We shall walk alongside the River Barada starting at BabTouma with views of the old city wall. Later we shall visit the magnificent Umayyad Mosque where in addition to the Mausoleum of Saladin there is a minaret for Jesus and a shrine to John the Baptist and one to Hassan, son of Ali and grandson of the Prophet Mohammad. We shall include in our visiting St Mary’s Orthodox Cathedral and the Azem Palace a complex of beautifully restored Damascene gardens and buildings. We take dinner in our hotel.

Day 3     Thursday 3 March

After an early breakfast we travel some miles north of Damascus to two renowned pilgrimage sites of the Middle East. First Seidnayya, a Greek Orthodox Convent dedicated to Our Lady, one of the oldest places of pilgrimage in the Middle East and at one time the most visited second only to Jerusalem. Special among its (hidden) treasures is a portrait of the Virgin Mary reputedly by St Luke and having miraculous powers. We continue to Maalula an enchanting little village with the Convent of St Thelca, a student of St Paul and one of the first Christian martyrs. Here the language is that of Christ, Aramaic. The Byzantine Monastery and Church of Sts Sergius and Bacchus has one of the oldest churches in the world, built in AD325. The hillside below is riddled with caves inhabited more than 50,000 years ago. We shall celebrate our Mass here before returning to Damascus to visit the Sayyida Ruqayya Mosque, Ruqayya being a Shi’ite saint. The Iranians have built the beautiful Persian style mosque around the saint’s mausoleum. We return to our hotel for dinner.

Day 4      Friday 4 March

After celebration of our Pilgrim’s Mass in the hotel we leave Damascus and drive north to Aleppo. En route we will drive through the city of Hama principally to view the norias; centuries old these amazing water wheels 40 metres high lift water of the Orontes River up onto the higher farm land. We will also have the opportunity to see beehive houses. The story of this type of shelter begins in the Stone Age and these ones in Syria are identical to the ones that are said to have stood in the same area for the last 10,000 years. We plan also to visit one or two of the Dead Cities over which arguments continue about their origin and date, a discussion we shall join. There are more than 600 sites that date back certainly to Byzantine days but no one knows why they were abandoned. We arrive in Aleppo for dinner at our hotel and a two night stay.

Day 5      Saturday 5 March

Aleppo is the second city of Syria claiming the same age as Damascus and in many minds its claim seems more substantial with acceptance of habitation for 8000 years. Damascus stands for government and Aleppo for trade. Our visit to Qala’at Samaan with the immense ruined Basilica of St Simeon the Stylite not only excites the imagination but retains a sense on unreality. We will celebrate our Pilgrims’ Mass at the Basilica, a huge pilgrimage centre through the centuries. On returning to Aleppo we will visit the great Umayyad Mosque which is 10 years younger than that at Damascus and known as Al Jamaa Zacharia after the Prophet Zachariah the father of John the Baptist. We visit the Souq, one of the most atmospheric in the Middle East, and the Citadel that stands today on the rock that was first fortified in 333BC by the Seleucids. We then return to our hotel.

Day 6      Sunday 6 March

We set off from Aleppo after breakfast and, driving south, pause at Homs to celebrate our Pilgrims’ Mass at the Church of Our Lady’s Girdle. We continue to the Krak des Chevaliers, the finest Crusader castle of them all, described by T E Lawrence as “perhaps the best preserved and the most wholly admirable castle in the world”. There are places holy to St George in about 30 countries worldwide and more than 40 in Lebanon alone; we visit St George’s Greek Catholic Monastery Deir Mar Jirjis close by the Krak where a church has stood since the 5th century. A second church was built in the 12th century which houses a 300 year old Iconostasis whilst we should see in the new church one 150 years old. We go on to the town of Safita for dinner and one night’s stay.

Day 7      Monday 7 March

We cross the border. Lebanon geographically is formed of four strips running north/south, the coastal with most of the towns, the Mount Lebanon range rising to over 3000 metres, then a valley the Bekaa, and on the border with Syria the Anti-Lebanon range rising to about 2800 metres.. Our visiting today takes us onto the Mount Lebanon range and in particular the beautiful Qadisha or Holy Valley. Monks and hermits have found peace here for hundreds of years. Our viewpoints will be more secular but nonetheless stunning as this is reputably the most scenic place in Lebanon. Weather permitting we shall go up to the Cedars. Later we return coastal and to Byblos, another ancient city said by many to be the oldest in the world. There is much to see most of which in a walking tour. We shall celebrate our Mass in the Church of St John the Baptist before going on to our hotel at Broumana above Beirut for a 3 night stay.

Day 8      Tuesday 8 March

We visit Harissa where the great statue of the Virgin Mary overlooks Jounieh Bay We shall celebrate our Pilgrims’ Mass at the Cathedral Notre Dame de Leban. We then go on to the Bekaa valley and to the ruined Roman city of Baalbek. This was probably the most important Roman site in the Middle East. It has a noble and the largest Roman temple ever built. We return to the coast and tour Beirut by coach and by foot before going to our hotel in Broumana.

Day 9      Wednesday 9 March

We travel south to Sidon and Tyre, places constantly referred to in the Old and New testaments, but first to Magadouche to celebrate our Pilgrims’ Mass in the Shrine to the Virgin Mary one of the greatest pilgrimage sites in Lebanon commemorating where Our Lady rested while Jesus travelled. An icon here is reputed to have been painted for Helena mother of Constantine. There is much to see in Sidon among them the Crusaders’ Sea Castle and the Temple of Echmoun the one remaining Phoenician site in Lebanon. Later at Tyre we have the famed fishing harbour and, among several historical sites, the “other” Qana. We shall look for the cave with the carved figures. We return to Beirut and our hotel in Broumana.

Day 10      Thursday 10 March

We drive to Beirut Airport for our morning return flight to Heathrow where if we are on schedule our coach should be waiting at about 1.30pm to take us back to St Dunstan’s