Father Victor, the abbot of the Church of Sergius and Bacchus in Maaloula
LOCATIONS:
– Reportage recording of a festive procession of Greek Catholics along a street in the mountainous part of Maaloula;
– The Church of Sergius and Bacchus, a unique architectural structure with three altars (Virgin Mary, Sergius and Bacchus, Gabriel and Michael)¹;
– rare shots of the interior of the church in stone and wood, where wood was used in the stonework as a kind of shock absorber during earthquakes²;
– the icons in the iconostasis were painted by the iconographer Michael from Crete especially for this church in 1813;
The Apostles’ row was painted in 1818, when Michael was living in Damascus; the icons show some features of the clothing typical of Damascus at that time – silk with gold threads.
– A video recording of a conversation with the priest Father Victor;
– The “Our Father” Prayer in Aramaic, as recited by him;
– Reportage recording (June 2014) in Maaloula, St. Thecla’s Monastery, after the city was liberated by government armies.
¹ The church was built under the Roman Emperor Maximian in honor of the holy soldiers Sergius and Bacchus, who suffered for Christ in 303 in what is now Resafa (Sergiopolis), in the early fourth century
² German research on the wood inside the walls and wooden ceilings indicates that the wood is about 2000 years old