Holy Places | 60 Minutes Full Episodes

Tonight, on this Easter Sunday, we will take you to a place outside our world, it is not Mars or Venus, but it could well be a remote peninsula in northern Greece that millions believe is the most sacred place on Earth. It's called Monte. AOS and prayers have been offered here every day without interruption for over a thousand years. It was set aside by ancient emperors to be the spiritual capital of Orthodox Christianity and has probably changed less over the centuries than any other inhabited place on the planet. Monks come here from all over and do everything they can to keep away what they call the world.

Not surprisingly, journalists haven't exactly been welcome for over 2 years. We've been negotiating and downright begging for an invitation, but we run into a monk. wall after wall, to our surprise and delight, a few months ago the monk said, "Okay, come see who we are." This Byzantine cross marks the border between Mount AOS and the 21st century. The monks come here as they always have for the beauty, the tranquility and the isolation but above all for this father Yakos is one of the few Americans on the mountain, he has been here more than half of his life.

You have to understand that the words we are saying in today's liturgy are the same words that Christ was saying. The same words as the saints of the 1st century, the 2nd century, the 3rd century and the 4th century, and nothing has changed in Orthodoxy since then, it is the only branch of Christianity that can claim that Father Elos is the abbot, the top man of Simonos, Petrus, one of the 20 monasteries it was Abdel a seos who invited us here and never let us forget what a rare privilege it was it happened once in 1981 the last time you invited the television crew here was in 1981 right, We weren't going to invite you but your persistence convinced us to open the door, the door that opened revealed the wonder of Simona Petus, which fits like a crown on the top of a rock 800 feet above sea level.

It was built in the 14th century and the monks will tell you it must be that way. It is considered a miracle that it did not fall into the sea. There are 20 monasteries on Mount Deos. Some look like medieval fortresses. Others are so large that they look like small cities. They emerge from virgin forests and border the coast shrouded in fog. There is nothing in these 130 square feet. Mile peninsula apart from monasteries and monks, we did not expect Mount AOS to be a quiet place, but we could not have imagined how quiet until we were dropped off here, the silence is only broken by the occasional knock on a piece of chiseled chestnut, it is a cult to prayer and began to be used here before bells existed.

The monks here have one goal name and it is how to get closer to God. Father Sarapan wanted us to understand that there is no place on Earth closer to Heaven than Mount AOS every day. A thousand Divine liturgies are celebrated on the peninsula. It is unique in the world and in the Orthodox Church exactly what makes it unique. It is the absolute way of life of monks. It's a Spartan way of life, but all the monks we spoke to said they never wanted to do it. They don't go out even a day so they try to be self-sufficient they grow their own fruits and vegetables they make their own tailors and when they get sick there is a doctor in the monastery Father Imos who is not very busy because the monks are in excellent shape there is remarkably little cancer practically none heart disease or Alzheimer's they must be doing something right besides drinking wine at 9:00 in the morning they have two meals a day there is what they call the first meal that lasts 10

minutes

and the second meal that lasts 10

minutes

there is no meat or conversation at the table, the only sound is that of a monk reading sacred texts.

We were surprised how busy the monks are when they are not praying, they are working. Father Theodosius, born a Lutheran in Germany, is a mechanical wizard who has given the monastery, continuous electricity and occasional hot water, many Christians in the world are looking for the original Church, you know, the ancient Church, you think this is the most close to the original Church, yes, when you come to Orthodoxy, you will. Look, he has everything you ever wanted for Aros's father, he takes care of the old trails here, he clears the paths we walked with him on what was for us a grueling hike in the hills above the monastery, although it was not difficult for he, although he says. that after decades of wandering the world this is his way I've been to many

places

tell me where uh from Switzerland of course from Sweden Finland Spain Portugal Singapore Australia and uh uh Texas Texas How did you like Texas?

I loved it. I liked it above all. People now with all the trips you've done, how did you end up here? I was looking for a way of life to which I can give my all and I believe that the god of Jesus is above all others, money, lifestyle, even family. The family at Simus Petrus is made up of 54 monks from eight countries. Father Yakos came here 25 years ago from Winthrop, Massachusetts. He is as beautiful as he looks. I think he took us on a tour of the monastery. He be tough enough to build a monastery on top of it. a rock today, but how did they do it in the 13th century?

You know, that's something that even modern architects are surprised when the workers came and saw the site where Saint Simon, the founder of the R Monastery, wanted to build, they looked at him and said you're crazy, you're crazy, of course, so be Crazy wasn't a bad thing, no, not at all now, back then, how did you get things here? We have mules. It takes 15 minutes to walk through the monastery into the sunlight, enough time to I discovered that Father Yakov's journey to Mount AOS began at the age of six when his father showed him a photo, it was so impressive and I realized I turned around and said dad, you know, I don't think it's going to be. able to believe that someone lives in that building until I myself step on those balconies Destiny is a bit too much since I was six years old yes father yovos does not follow what happens in winth or anywhere else today there are no newspapers or radio there is no television in Mount Deos, there are some phones and Father Yakos received a call last year.

His father was dying before he died. He asked me if he would go so he could see him one last time. Reasonable request of a parent. I think so. The answer was negative, although you did not go, I did not go, I did not go, I did not go because monks do not go to the funerals of their relatives or friends, they remain here in the monastery when your father asked you to. come see him one last time and you said no. Was there any feeling that I'm letting my father down? Not at all. I know that one day we will see each other in Paradise.

The idea in Mount AOS is not alone. isolate yourself from the outside world but let go of all the memories of the past life the purpose of you being here is I understand that it is prayer without distractions I am not getting distracted now why are you laughing first first tell me why are you laughing? Why am I laughing? Because Saint Paul says that we must pray without ceasing. What's so funny about that? It's not the funny thing. The funny thing is how you think I can stop praying. You are praying every minute of the day. now when we are actually talking, of course you don't see father yakos praying as he speaks, but he looks at these other monks, his lips never stop moving even for a second, they keep reciting the jesus prayer day and night.

Lord Jesus have mercy on me it becomes like breathing some monks say they can pray in their sleep and they don't sleep more than 3 hours a night but Mount AOS gets more applicants than it can handle. It's harder to get into than Harvard. A man comes as a novice. He is free. leave if you don't like him and the monks can tell him to leave if they don't like him when a novice comes here can you tell if he will make it or not? Can you say if he will qualify to be one? a monk after a while it becomes quite obvious whether someone is cut out for this or not, that is why we have a trial period that can last up to 3 years.

I bet you know a lot before 3 years, no doubt, once he is accepted into the community. It is a lifelong commitment and life never changes here never every day at 3 in the morning a single bell rings informing the brothers that it is time to stop praying on their own and start praying in the church in one day typical and every day is a typical day. The service lasted eight hours. The monks say it is an 8-hour conversation with God. A dress rehearsal for eternity. Remember that this doesn't just happen on Sundays, it happens every day, 365 days a year.

A monk never has a day off. The Divine Liturgy The Life of Christ celebrated by men whose only passion is to draw closer to Christ each day the depth of their devotion defies description they did not resemble the same monks we had met in the gardens and the workshops were completely transformed with such a concentration profound that they were immune to distraction were occasional flashes of ecstasy this old monk could have risen from a rembrand there are no musical instruments in the church just singing singing endlessly many of the vocals that the bases in particular could have done at the Met we did not understand the words we really didn't have for this phrase, we knew, Lord, have mercy, the most miraculous thing about Mount Athos when we return.

The most miraculous thing about Mount Athos. It may just be the fact that he's still around. There over the centuries it has been invaded by Ottoman crusaders mercenaries pirates and Franks the Nazis also had their eyes on it the 2,000 monks attribute their survival not surprisingly to divine intervention but they have also been quite clever some of the measures They have taken You will be surprised if you want to come to visit, although it can be organized, but it is not easy. You will first need a visa issued by the monks and, unless you are an Orthodox pilgrim, it may take a while.

Then you will fly. to Athens and head to a scruffy little town in the north of Greece where there is no airport and where the roads are dangerous, then you will take a ferry unless the trip has been canceled due to rough seas which happens all the time, but in a quiet day can be a very pleasant journey the monks will tell you that it takes years of prayer and soul searching before we are ready to leave the world for Mount AOS for people like us, although it takes little more than an hour, it was the Al beginning of Lent, when we took these photographs, the ferry was

full

of pilgrims from all over the Orthodox Christian world Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbians, Romanians, Russians, it was not long before the first monasteries appeared and we thought we were sailing towards Byzantium towards a fantasy. land of castles and palaces we headed to vopi one of the largest and oldest monasteries on Mount AOS had the feel of a medieval city Holiness seemed to seep from the very stones of the 10th century church frescoes from the marble font to the saints water, but then there was the secular-looking centerpiece of the monastery.

There is nothing notable about the clock tower at Vetti Monastery except for one thing: look at the time, it's around 8:30 now my watch reads 2:30, that's a difference of 6 and there's nothing wrong. with your watch or with my watch it is because the monks on Mount AOS keep Byzantine time the day begins at sunset not at midnight the monks measured time this way during the days of the Byzantine Empire which is the Christian Empire that followed the fall of Rome and that is the flag still flying here how long ago the Byzantine Empire fell 1453 that is a well known fact well, it was not for us, but for Father Saran 1453 it is the day before yesterday this peninsula is the only place in the world which is still preserved The Bantine era has lasted for about 550 years.

It was harvest time when we arrived and dozens of monks were hard at work in the olive groves on the hills overlooking the monastery, which is where we met Father Nick Andros from Melbourne, Australia. This place looks like a summer resort like a vacation resort like a retreat but it's not an arena it's an arena yeah what do you mean invisible war invisible war that's true what does that mean we fight the angels of the dark side, you see? of the devil's demon satan the battle against satan and the dark side is fought here every day the spiritual leader in vopi is Abad AR here the life of Christ is lived in a genuine way and this does not happen in many other

places

in the world What I am talking about is the art of Salvation.

It just so happened that while we were there, the monks held an elaborate 7-hour vigil and the church was packed with pilgrims. It is held once a year to honor the archangels Gabriel and Michael according to the Bible. Gabriel and Michael led the army of angels that expelled Satan from Heaven. The relics of the church are taken out every day and pilgrims ask for the blessing of Saints, the most sacred relic of the entire Peninsula is in this case cloth said to be part of a garment worn by the Virgin Mary, the irony is that, although the mother of God is venerated here, no other woman is allowed even set foot on Mount AOS.

It has been this way for a thousand years, the reason according to orthodox doctrine is that Christ gave the peninsula to his mother and all other women have been excluded so that Yul honors the Virgin Mary. It has also been said that in the days before the ban, when women came here,The monks were distracted and could not dedicate themselves completely. to prayer they say it's been a lot easier since the last Lady left keeping women away certainly wasn't a big problem 3,400 years ago do you think that's becoming problematic today? I don't think so because the monastery itself and all the land around it is our property and if we don't want women to come on our property we have every right to make Nowos can be the last exclusively male bastion in the world and Father Arius says that has to continue like this.

Here we are concerned only with purity and our elevation to eternity, if women are allowed to bring their families and for their children, this place would become a tourist attraction and would cease to be a place of silence. If we would like to experience deep silence, they recommend going to Stavon Aita. It is the smallest monastery on the Holy Mountain, but has some of the most notable treasures. Be quiet just by entering, there is no electricity here, so the icons and mosaics are illuminated only by rays of sun and a few candles. Saint Nicholas, the patron saint, Saint John the Baptist and the Virgin Mary, we were stunned by the magnificence of the art here. but then we meet Father Maximus, a former Harvard Divinity School professor.

He told us that what we were seeing cannot be described as art, they are devotional objects and are part of the lurgic life of the church, so we don't do it. We have art and we are not a museum, I want to say it clearly, whatever you call it, it is priceless, that is why the monasteries have been invaded and looted so many times over the centuries. The monk's most recent brush with history occurred just 70 years ago. the Nazis were approaching in the spring of 1941 the Germans invaded and occupied uh uh Greece they marched towards the Acropolis they raised the swastika on the side of the Parthenon and were about to invade the monks asked for a meeting with Nazi officials who advised them to appeal to Hitler himself and the monks wrote a letter to Hitler a letter was written to him and uh in the letter the monks identify themselves they said this is what we are and they asked Hitler to put the Holy Mountain under his personal protection what kind of response, what? did you recover?

It seems that Hitler liked the idea and accepted the invitation to become the personal protector of the Holy Mountain. Let me clarify it. Hitler, the personal protector of the Holy Mountain. So it is so. Hitler did it. They sent a team of German academics to ride the spirit, took 1,800 photographs of the mountain treasures, and it wasn't because they enjoyed photography. Hitler wanted the riches of the monastery in Berlin. The professors were sent as an advanced team to catalog the treasures of the sacred mountains. That a selection of things could have been made to eliminate them did not happen, right?

No, not a single thing was taken. Father Maximus believes they have the Russians to thank for that when the Nazi scholars completed their work. Hitler was stuck in Russia and did not think about icons: the Nazi period has been largely forgotten here for the monks, it was just another point on the path and a small one at that, today Vop is the most popular destination on the mountain. It welcomes 35,000 pilgrims a year and offers more than spiritual sustenance the monks have their own fishing boats and the fishing is quite good the fish is served fresher than in any Greek restaurant the refectory dates back to the 12th century and the food dates back to the 12th century here it has changed it has been free, vatopedi has been supported by rich benefactors, emperors, princes, kings and today partly by pilgrims with deep pockets who commission icons in process, but ancient treasures is not a possibility, they cannot even see them, they are locked, it is not a new security system, but it works normally.

It takes more than one monk to open the door because no monk is allowed to have all four keys at the same time. It's kind of a medieval version of nuclear launch control. Keep those keys in your pocket. It's funny, try not to. Father Matthew of Fondulac Wisconsin received the abbot's blessing to allow us to enter the inner sanctuary. Once inside, there was still another door hidden behind the curtain. We enter the world of Byzantium. It was hard to imagine that everything here was at least. 600 years old because the Shine had not faded, there are almost 4,000 icons stored in this Monastery alone.

Wow, the highlight is a 14th century icon of Christ. Every monk will tell you that the sole purpose of life on Mount AOS is to get closer to Christ every day. and they say that total Union with Christ is only possible when they leave this world, the first thing a monk does is Embrace and love death Embrace and love death because death is the ticket to the afterlife without a ticket you cannot travel where get the ticket in this life that's what we do every day we prepare for death I know and we are happy for our trip to heaven right, Father Matthew offered to take us to the transit point between this world and heaven when a monk He dies, is buried until nothing remains but bones, then is taken to where every monk who has ever lived here ends up. el uary any idea how many skulls there are here thousands not sure how many thousands any idea how far the ones here go back to the 16th century, when you look at the diary the thing that comes to mind most is that this is where I'm going to be.

I always like to say that these are my future roommates, there was nowhere to go from there so we returned to the mainland, the monks invited us to return at any time and if we do or if our grandchildren or great-grandchildren They do it after 10 days here, we believe that MOS will not have changed at all with an exhausting pandemic and a horrible political season, it would be forgiven. for giving up the idea of ​​miracles, but tonight we will take you to a place known for them, the shrine of Our Lady of Lords in the south of France is the site of 70 medical miracles recognized by the Catholic Church, the Marian shrine Famous for Faithful but Less Well is the Lord's Office of Medical Observations, where world-renowned doctors and researchers conduct decade-long investigations into the countless cure claims reported over the years.

They determine which cases can be explained medically and which cannot. It's those Church officials who might call. A miracle for doctors It's a lesson in the limits of medicine For the devout It's divine intervention The small French town of Lords hidden in the foothills of the Pyrenees attracts more than 3 million pilgrims each year, more than those who travel to Mecca or Jerusalem and almost Everyone you know will tell you that they have heard stories of miracles here, but we hear none more inspiring than that of Sister Bernardet Morio. I tried everything I could, but this is something that cannot be cured.

What was your prognosis? Complete total paralysis. The forecast was really. Walking in the dark with his 83-year-old sister Morio through the chapel grounds in Brell, France, we found it hard to believe that for half his life he suffered from equine CA, a disorder of the nerves and lower spine. , he wore this all the time on his left foot. She said she was crooked and had a limp to walk. She needed this back and leg brace, an implant to relieve nerve pain, and massive doses of morphine. She told us that she had exhausted all treatment options, so in 2008 her doctor convinced her to make a pilgrimage to him. words, did you believe in miracles at that time?

I always believed in miracles, but not for me, so why did you decide to go? I didn't go there to see a miracle. I only went there to pray with others. Lord is a place where the smallest people all the sickest all the poorest they come first the sickest the poorest the sick and weakened with visible and hidden hidden wounds come from all over the world seeking to be healed by the natural waters of the sanctuary and the power of prayer amen and so I have asked for a complete healing or a super long remission. This was Kim Halpin's first pilgrimage.

Last year she discovered that she has an incurable blood cancer and came from Kansas to be cleansed in the waters of the Lords. You expect to be cured, don't you? I necessarily ask for everything I want and maybe I will be blessed with a portion, which will be fine. Halpen was helped by her son Shawn. We couldn't help but notice that there are as many volunteers as there are sick people here at Our Lady of the Lords Hospitality. American volunteers helped Jamie Jensen travel from Minnesota for his 18th visit even though the camera sees I have a condition and a chair when I'm here I don't have a condition Jensen's condition is a brain disease all those trips to Lords Haven I didn't give him the physical miracle he wanted, but maybe he says he got the miracle he needed.

He was very bitter, very angry with myself. Coming to the Lord changed your heart a lot. Do you consider it a miracle? I do it because there is a peace within me

holy

Mary, Mother of God, stories of inner peace and acceptance do not meet the standards of the Bureau of Medical Observations and with only 70 recognized medical miracles in 160 years, you would have a better chance of playing among the thousands of faithful who still line up. in the baths and in this grotto where the first miracle is said to have occurred the sanctuary with its three basilicas and 25 chapels is designed as a large theater complex its numerous stages offer dozens of pious performances throughout the day the finale A procession in the light of the candles every night night there would be none of this if it were not for Saint Bernardet according to Catholic tradition in 1858 a mysterious woman appeared in this Grotto to Bernadet Subaru a 14 year old peasant girl Jean Mark Mika the bishop of Lords says that the woman He spoke with Subaru several times for five months and on March 25, the day of the Annunciation, he said I am the Immaculate Conception, when word spread that the Immaculate Conception, the Virgin Mary had appeared in the Lords, people came in mass to this Grotto and within days began making claims of miraculous cures. the ability to walk restored sight worried about fueling mass hysteria the church created the Bureau of Medical Observations in 1883 to investigate the claims, which brings us back to the other Burnard Deb in our story 14 years ago, Sister Morio found himself in a wheelchair in A. procession before the Lord seeking the intervention of Saint Bernardet and I really had that feeling that the Lord was walking with us and I heard him giving me these words I see your suffering and that of your sick brothers just give me everything that you heard the voice of Jesus yes I heard this inner voice I can't really tell you whose voice it was it was like a spiritual experience she said she came home spiritually rejuvenated but physically she felt worse after 3 days in excruciating pain she told us that suddenly found the strength to walk to the chapel and pray then I felt a kind of warmth entering my body I felt relaxed but I didn't really know what that meant and in my room I heard this in a voice again telling me take all your braces Don't do it I thought twice and started taking off the foot support and my foot that used to be crooked was straight and I could put it on the floor without feeling any pain, suddenly your foot was straight, yeah, just like. the way things are now and so I moved on, she says she took off her braces and got off the morphine for good, does this make sense to you?

No, she knew it was impossible, she came to my door with her doctor and told me last year. I arrived in Lou and made a pilgrimage and 3 days after returning home I was cured. Dr. alesandro def franchi hears stories like that all the time as president and resident physician at the Lord's Office of Medical Observations, the former rci pediatrician's job is to determine if there's more to those stories by applying seven strict criteria established by the church and we look for a diagnosis and if that diagnosis is a diagnosis of a serious illness with a severe prognosis and then we want to make sure that that person is a person that was cured in a way that we mean suddenly instantly in a complete and a lasting way over time and my seventh criterion that has to coincide is that there must be no possible explanation for that cure here sister bened morio at the end she showed us the archives containing thousands of claims of recorded cures, this seems almost 10 pounds 10 pounds I think Dr.

D. franchi A practicing Catholic told us what separates the more than 7,000 claims of cures from the 70 the church calls Miracles is an ungodly amount of medical documentation and patients like Sister Morio willing to lay down their lives under a microscope we sent her to different neurologists we sent her to different rheumatologists due to the different specific case of her disease we asked to repeat all types of imaging electrophysiology twice we did everything we were doing medicine to be absolutely sure of her diagnosis and it was but he I wanted to confirm something else. They asked me to meet with two psychiatrists in Paris who wanted to know if he was lying if he had already done so.

I had some hallucination if I had levitated I remember no doctor respondingI never left the ground floor satisfied. Dr. D Franchise sent Sister Morio's case to a group of 33 doctors and professors called the Comme of Lords International Medical Committee, their job is to determine if there is a cure. It is what they consider medically inexplicable. We're not trying to break down or break down anything. We're just trying to be objective. You could call them devil's advocates. Dr. Michael Moran, surgical oncologist. Dr. Yasek Mwin, professor of urology at Johns Hopkins. and Dr. Kieran Moriarity, a renowned addiction specialist, examined Sister Morio's case.

Is there anything that could have caused her response? No treatment would be as effective. How quickly does religion enter your medical conversation? We cannot separate ourselves as people who have been deeply immersed in the culture and traditions of the Lords and the church, but make no mistake, we are as technical as a forensic pathologist when it comes to looking at the technical details of the case. After 8 years of investigation, the committee determined that Sister Morio's case had no medical explanation. So when a survey is made about Sister Bernardet's research or any of the other cures, this is done on a purely medical basis, something that could be reviewed by others.

Outside doctors, that is, I have estimated that I can affirm with absolute uh certainty that Sister Benedet's case had been reviewed by at least 300 doctors 300 doctors and there if tomorrow morning one of our viewers is a doctor and one day he stops in the south of France and comes to see me and wants to see Sister Benedet's file. I will be happy to show you because we have everything, it is open and collegial and there are no secrets, the secret is the mystery of everything and on that the church has the last word in 2018, a decade after the case of its priest, the sister died, was declared the 70th Miracle of the Lords, to declare a miracle is to say that God did something, this is the miracle and the doctors cannot go to that land in that field when I said people I was going to come here I have a lot of people people who told me oh come on there has to be some explanation that we just don't know what you say to Skeptics com and look, be open, don't be narrow minded.

Be open to believing that the real word is broader than the visible word. It has been said about the Lords. For those who believe that no explanation is necessary. For those who don't, no explanation is possible. This holiday season brings new hope with the rollout of vaccines and a new year. Sunrise is a moment of faith and reminded us of Lalabella, a monument to a rare devotion. 800 years ago, an Ethiopian king ordered a new capital for Christians on the central plateau of Ethiopia. There are 11 churches, each carved from a single gigantic block of stone, without bricks or mortar.

There is no concrete, there is no wood, only sculpted rock in architecture, as we first told you last Christmas, not much is known about who built them or how, but the faithful of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church say there is no mystery, Actually the churches of LaBella were built by the angels of the Northern Highlands. of Ethiopia arose 31 million years ago, when fissures in the earth flooded the Horn of Africa with lava a mile deep on the slopes of hills that can still be seen Columns of lava frozen in time iron made the basalt was red and gases trapped inside made the stone light and flexible like air Christians left their mark in Ethiopia before the year 400 found that ancient stone welcomed the bite of a chisel churches were carved around the year 1200 by people called zague their king LaBella is said to have traveled the six 1600 miles to Jerusalem Legend has it that when he returned and Jerusalem fell to Islamic conquest, lalabella ordered a new home for Christianity and returned with an ambitious idea or vision to create an African Jerusalem, a black Jerusalem here in the Ethiopian highlands, fil goris is an Ethiopian. architect and historian who accompanied us through the Rock of Ages, there are three groups of churches and each group is interconnected within itself, we are sitting in St.

Mary's Church, yes, how was it built? Well, it was built starting from the outside, they formed the shape and then they started digging or let's say digging down, so they essentially dug a trench around the entire perimeter, yeah, which left them exactly with a giant cube of solid rock and then they carved its doors and entered, piercing the interior largely in the darkness, artists. sculpted many rooms without room for error, arches, vaults and columns that imitate traditional construction, although in Solid Rock there is no need to support the roof, the enduring mystery is why King LaBella attempted what seemed impossible when the most advanced construction techniques simple ones were known as The Story.

Wow, it was helped by Angeles, yes, who worked on the project overnight. I think I prefer to take this as symbolic because don't you have any experience working with angels in architecture? Well, I'm inspired by Los Angeles, the site of the 11 churches covers approximately 62 acres and is divided by a stream that King LaBella named the Jordan River. The largest church covers about 8,000 square feet. Each is approximately four stories high, but its most astonishing dimension cannot be measured. It is the length to which they call for worship. It is considered to be a

holy

place so coming here as a devout Christian is a very strong sign of your belief some people travel hundreds of kilometers to get here on foot and have been doing so for several centuries the churches are open for worship throughout the year year, but we There, on Christmas Eve, when almost 200,000 pilgrims ascended to heaven on a path that descended to Earth, many walked for days or weeks fasting dressed in white, a test that is rinsed to the disciples in tradition of Jesus.

Any Ethiopian over the age of 30 cannot forget the suffering from drought and war and a million people lost to hunger and therefore, having known poverty in this life, they have invested their souls in the next toal yiga nos He said I believe God is here. I came with faith, they told their neighbor Gate Ababa and his daughter. We walked from their farms almost 100 miles away, a 3 day trip. God can hear your prayers anywhere. Why did you feel you had to be here so God can see our devotion? She said and our dedication. We were very tired.

He said. We were falling and rising throughout the trip all to see the celebration here and God will recognize our effort the Christmas celebration that the Ethiopians call GNA compresses them shoulder to shoulder to fast and sing and praise all night until the dawn brings the day of Christmas, says the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. to be among the first capitals of Christianity thanks to a mysterious figure from the Hebrew Bible. The faithful believe that the Queen of Sheba left Ethiopia and went to Jerusalem where she met King Solomon. From that meeting, a son was born and when the son was an adult he returned to Ethiopia. with 12,000 Israelites and the Ark of the Covenant containing the tablets with the word of God the Ten Commandments and the Ark remains in Ethiopia according to the priests of the orthodox church we meet tag s maabo the main priest of Labella in the church of St.

Jorge, which was the last to be built and was considered the masterpiece. I met a woman on Christmas Day who had spent three days walking here. Who are these pilgrims? These are believers. She told us that not only 3 days, even 3 months, sometimes when there were none. trips by plane or by bus people used to travel from various parts of the country for months to come here and celebrate with us the celebration sounds to the rhythm of ancient instruments the double-headed cabaro drum and a bell called whose sound was known in the north of Africa. 3,000 years before Jesus, on Christmas Eve, we saw you and your priests lead the singing all night long.

What are you saying in that song? We tell people that God became human and a human became God thanks to Christ, we went from being punished by God to being his children again Christmas is the day forgiveness was born but while God forgives time not after of eight centuries the basalt basilicas are tired of wind and water what is absolutely clear is that something quite miraculous happened here in Steven Battle is an architect with the World Monuments Fund who told us that the Labella miracle is being undermined because the rock is not solid like a rock.

When you build a conventional building, you go to a quarry and you will have different grades of stone and you try to select the best stone and Leave the bad things behind when you are carving a church into the side of the mountain, you don't have that luxury and usually , in any of the churches here you get good stone and a lot of it is good stone, but you also get really bad stone and really very bad stone, which is really very soft and over time, if you touch it, it crumbles and this It is one of the most sacred parts of lb Bella, we saw the good and the bad in the chamber where King LaBella rests.

This is one of the best preserved sculptures I have seen in Laella. Yes, it is particularly beautiful and they are also painted. Simon War is a master stonemason. He also contributes to the World Monuments fund, a US-based charity that he preserves. Some of humanity's greatest achievements work on the roof. The First War repaired European cathedrals and Roman antiquities, but LaBella is more complicated due to the sincere belief that angels worked this stone. Simon, you can't actually cut this stone to fit a new piece. because the stone you would be cutting is sacred, yes. This was one of the first big problems I ran into if we ever had to drill a hole to strengthen it to put a pin in.

We had to discuss it with the priests. U they collected the dust uh there was a complete procedure of touching the cloth and the priest collected the dust yes, that was the problem when War was asked to resurrect the cross in this window without disturbing the fragment that remained on this cross. It disappeared completely, yes, there was a very, very thin piece of stone left, so I opened the back of the cross shape we were inserting so that it fit over the original stone, a bit like a dentist, and that's how we looked. able to preserve this little piece of stone, which is bad in terms of stonework, it's crazy, but it has to be done in this kind of situation, there have been other crazy conservation ideas a dozen years ago, five umbrellas were built to avoid let the heavens pour down. local people call them gas station roofs and I think that's a pretty apt way to describe them, so you can imagine we have this extraordinary place with some of the most beautiful buildings in the world with huge extraordinary spiritual meaning and there are a lot of gas stations. roofs that have been placed on top of them is really not compatible it is not appropriate Ungodly contemplating the roofs became a lesson in the law of unintended consequences the churches were too wet now they are too dry for the first time in 900 years It is not raining exactly correctly and that's why the stone is contracting a lot more than ever before and what's happening is this creates little flaws on a micro level and the stone starts to crumble.

The roofs were intended to be temporary and in a few years should be recovered. Steven Battle prays that they will be completely removed and replaced with intensive maintenance. To that end, the World Monuments fund is teaching conservation to dozens of Labella priests and laypeople in the hope that a host can protect the Celestials perhaps for centuries to come, how long can another 900 years last if they Do you care for them properly? Oh yes, we are beyond doubt if they are cared for properly, even Beyond another millennia, we probably won't know what it was. certainty the answer to why attempt what must have seemed impossible no answer was evident until we eliminated what we saw on Christmas Day in the Old Testament.

Isaiah advises those who seek God to look at the Rock from which they were cut and the Quarry from which they were cut. that you were whoever cut this rock did angels or man understand that in the presence of a miracle faith never disappears we are about to visit a place that few people have seen firsthand the Vatican Library a vast collection of incomparable historical treasures founded five centuries ago, when Europe was emerging from the Middle Ages, a period of so-called humanism when the Catholic Church was open to new ideas in philosophy, science and the human spirit, it is the Pope's library, but it contains much more than just documents of the church.

They are manuscripts dating back almost 2,000 years in music and mathematics war and exploration even cookbooks and love letters the library is closed to the public a place only for but the Vatican agreed to let us in to see some of the priceless artifacts of our collective past welcome to the 15th century in Rome you turn a corner and you come across Antiquity a delicious mixed salad ofpresent and past we arrived at the Vatican and found a parade of medieval costumes underway what better way to start a journey through history there are around 2 million printed books 2 million printed books and inside the Library the past surrounded us again When they showed us the Magnificent building and its riches, this is the Arbino Bible, for example, this spectacular Bible commissioned in 1476 by the Duke of Orbino, we wanted to have a very elegant Bible, here you see and this is what we obtained.

The curator of the library, Timothy Jans , tells us that it took years to make the Bible by hand, letter by letter, image by image decorated with real gold. It's just one of the libraries. 880,000 handwritten manuscripts from times before the printing press. that those approximately 2 million printed books Christian and pagan, sacred and profane in virtually every language known to man, there are thousands of engravings and drawings that cannot be windows to the past and a huge collection of ancient coins, this was the money of Palestine 2,000 years ago. ago including the type of silver coins that were said to have paid Judas to betray Christ here is a map of the world drawn 50 years before Columbus on its edge the towers of paradise and an immediate bestseller The description of Columbus of his voyage to the New World in 1493, in a way, the library is a kind of attic of Western civilization, it's very true and it's like a lot of attics, you know, you put things in all the time, you keep pushing boxes around to make room for more things, that was great, father.

Michael Collins is an Irish priest who has written extensively about the Vatican, where the library shelves, if you put them side by side, would stretch for 31 miles. Does anyone actually know what the library contains? No one knows exactly what is there because it will be impossible for the human brain to understand remember the titles who wrote it when they were written it is a treasure of humanity what you have here monor Cher presides over the library its Great Hall essentially unchanged over the years centuries is a gallery of images from ancient times Saints, philosophers and representations of the great libraries of the pre-Christian world Babylon Athens Alexandria a sanctuary for learning and books there is one person who can actually take a book out of the library right, uh yeah, the Pope can have all the books in the library if St.

Peter's Basilica represents the splendor of the RITGrande church, the nearby library is a testimony of the monks and scribes who made magnificent miniatures in times past. Here there is devotional music commissioned by Pope Leo X and the text of the Christmas Mass used at the altar by Alexander V. 6 both manuscripts written 5 centuries ago. In parchment, treated animal skin, you will often see sheepskin, sometimes goatskin, used. Christopher Chelenza, director of the American Academy in Rome, is a scholar who often uses the library. He says that writing on parchment was not only tedious but also expensive. He wanted a monastery.

To produce a Bible that was perhaps 400 pages long, it could cost him 400 sheep. It is an investment beyond academic work. Have you ever come here to hang out and look through things and see what he might discover? I think we've all come. here at one time or another hoping to discover something that has a general direction we're going but not really knowing where we'll end up, you may find it as curator Adelbert Roth showed us drawings of a German jousting tournament in 1481. or an old cookbook that tells us that Roman food lovers in the 4th century ate chicken and seafood pancakes in milk and whipped pearl cake, how to break down the enemy wall or of an 11th century tretis in The Art of war, a Byzantine soldier brandishing a flamethrower. something the Greeks invented 1,500 years earlier or the Love Letters of Henry VII to a Bolin, the letters are certainly among the strangest and most unusual one would expect to find in the Pope's archives.

There are 17 of them handwritten by the king of England to the woman who would be the second of his Six Wives and then he would have decapitated the little heart there. Henry signs her name with a heart like a schoolboy in love speaks of his fervent love his great loneliness without her I wish myself, he says, in the arms of my beloved whose pretty little ducklings I trust shortly to kiss the ducklings being a term in Henry's time to use your imagination, what is that doing in the Vatican Library? We don't know how they ended up here in the Vatican.

It may be that some spy perhaps one of My priestly public relations predecessors may have stolen these letters and taken them to Rome to present in the case if a trial were held for Henry's divorce petition, but the church was He refused to allow Henry to divorce Catherine of Aragon so he could marry, and he married her anyway. He broke with Rome and took control of the Church of England, the country largely converted to the Protestant faith. This is one of the moments of the 16th century that leads to the fracture of Christianity and much of the bloodshed and wars that, especially, the late 16th century was known because while man was exploring the planet a Scientific Revolution was also underway. by the mid-17th century Navigators had mapped much of the world in remarkable detail Rio De Janeiro Cusco Mexico City Galileo turned his eyes and telescope toward the heavens here from 1612 are his drawings of sunspots for his insistence that the sun is the center of the universe and the Earth moves around it the church called him a heretic the pope at that time Pope irban VII who is a very good friend of Galileo told him look you know I agree with you, you are right, but I can't approve this because I am the Pope and if I go against this it seems that I am going against the Bible and I am going to be shaken to my core. foundation the belief of the world and of the world's Christians, not just Catholics, just 380 years later, in 1992, Pope John Paul II apologized for the Galileo affair, his successor Benedict V 16 has sought a middle ground in the skirmishes centuries between the Church and science in a recent sermon said that even the Big Bang theory of the creation of the universe is not in conflict with faith because the mind of God was behind it.

This is the complicated part, the complicated part and behind the scenes of the Pope's Library, the science is applied to the books that fall apart as restoration. workers deal with water damage, mold and the ravages of time, it seems endless, this work, yes, obviously, Angela Gan and the others go little by little, patching and strengthening old pages, scraping off the paste applied by well-meaning restorers centuries ago, a paste that is becoming acidic. on the page Mario Tiberti rarely reads what he is repairing, it is too distracting, especially if the writer is Michelangelo when I work on the Michelangelo papers, it was the same as working on the Mickey Mouse part, yicky Mo, a difficult job It can take months or even years. but consider the result 1,000 years after us.

I hope you can read the same thing we are reading now. The most valuable documents in the library date back almost 2,000 years, almost to the time of Saint Peter, the first Pope, whose tomb is located under the silica that bears his name, his letters to the faithful form two books of the New Testament and here is a copy written in Greek on papyrus by one of Peter's disciples around the year 200, just a century after his death, in the beginning was the word and the Word was God and from the same time the Gospel of Luke and part of the Gospel of John also written on papyrus venerated by the first Christians in Egypt preserved for centuries in a monastery in the desert uh today's bread gives us contain the oldest known copy of the Lord's Prayer so fragile that we were only allowed to see replicas of that great papyrus treasure that I believe is the most important Treasure of Christianity with our tour almost finished it seemed as if the library collection had come to life on the streets of the Eternal.

City of centurions and crusaders of centuries of faith and madness, present time and past time, when we leave the library we think that there is something almost magical when we immerse ourselves in this place to breathe the air and touch the hand of History.