{"id":2567,"date":"2016-06-04T09:00:40","date_gmt":"2016-06-04T08:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/?p=2567"},"modified":"2016-06-04T09:24:17","modified_gmt":"2016-06-04T08:24:17","slug":"on-a-hill-faraway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/?p=2567","title":{"rendered":"On a hill far away"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Yesterday I was transported to the top of a hill far away, without ever leaving my house.\u00a0\u00a0 The rain was lashing down in Hatton, but in my mind’s eye I was standing in the Greek Orthodox Monastery of Hosios Melitios<\/em>, with the bright blue spring sky above.<\/p>\n

\"106-0652_IMG\"<\/a> \"106-0650_IMG\"<\/a> \"106-0646_IMG\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Founded in 1081, the monastery stands high\u00a0 on the south side of Mt Kithairon, on the border between Attica and Boeotia in Greece. What transported me there was a brief internet conversation with an American friend, George Burn, who asked about our mutual friend Fr Stavros. I sent him on a picture that Fr Stavros had sent me a few days before, of an Easter service\u00a0at the Monastery.<\/p>\n

\"DSC_0117\"<\/a>
\nI remembered the trip that |Mary and I made there way back in 2003. Fr Stavros wanted to show us “his monastery”. Although working as a psychotherapist in Athens, as a priest he is also responsible for services for the nuns at St Melitios. The long trip in the car out of the city, and up into the mountain was well worth it. We came away with many memories of the place and the kind nuns who greeted us there, not to mention a small icon of Hosios Melitius.<\/p>\n

\"Melitios\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On that hill faraway, Fr Stavros (whose name means “Cross”) celebrated Easter, and I remembered the Greek sunshine, in a wonderful, spiritual place.<\/p>\n

The Greek road trip went on and later that day Fr Stavros took us to see the spectacular mosaics at the monastery of Hosios Loukas<\/em> and to meet a priest friend of his there.\u00a0 But that story is for another day.<\/p>\n

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With Fr Stavros outside Hosios Loukas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I was transported to the top of a hill far away, without ever leaving my house.\u00a0\u00a0 The rain was lashing down in Hatton, but in my mind’s eye I was standing in the Greek Orthodox Monastery of Hosios Melitios, with the bright blue spring sky above. Founded in 1081, the monastery stands high\u00a0 on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-further"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2567"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2579,"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2567\/revisions\/2579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.couttsweb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}