Asia Minor Civilisation Museum

Museum’s Catalogue

General editor: Ilias Papageorgiou
Photographs & artistic layout: Maria Stefossi
Translated in English by: Michael Xenikakis Ananiadis
Translation editor: Vissarion Vakaros
Printing: FOTOLIO

© HOLY PILGRIMAGE SAINT JOHN THE RUSSIAN

Short Greeting

It is with great joy and excitement that we welcome You to the new Asia Minor Civilisation Museum which has been established by the Board of Directors of the Holy Pilgrimage of Saint John the Russian, funded mainly by NSRF and the financial support of the H.Pilgrimage and which permanently resides at the thoroughly refurbished and appropriately converted building hitherto used as a pilgrims’ guest house.

Here are displayed everyday’s life relics and artefacts, which, through indiscribable difficulties and extreme dangers, were brought to our land by the unjustifiably persecuted residents of Prokopi, Cappadocia in Asia Minor, after the Asia Minor greek Genocide and the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne.

Great awe overwhelms the observing and thinking visitors and pilgrims who realize that, the once wealthy refugees from Prokopi, decided to take in their very limited allowed luggage on this mandatory and without a certain destination journey the relics of Saint John, gospels, chalices and icons, the testimonies of life and faith and they left behind, in their unforgettable homeland, from which they were so savagely uprooted, many other valuable belongings. Here, therefore, my dear and welcomed visitor, you are not simply seeing salvaged artefacts and fragments of a remarkable civilization which among other things, echo crucial historical events.

Here, you stand in front of a soul testimony. In order to understand it the knowledge or the historical research and the study of archaeology and art are clearly not enough. Here, in this place, which is an extension of the House of God, the church of Saint John, a different approach is required and taught.

Enter with the utmost respect and fear of God. Stand respectfully. The holy Grace, which abundantly pours out to the heart, will guide You. It will initiate You. It will reveal to You mysteries and secrets previously unseen and unheard of.The greatness of Faith. The true beauty of life.

I entrust and leave You to that grace.

With all my love and honor,

The Metropolitan Bishop Chrisostomos of Chalcis

President of the Board of the H.Pilgrimage