Seven Churches Region: Smyrna and Asklepion

Smyrna is the persecuted church in Revelation 2. Archaelogically there is not much there; the site is about a city block square in Izmir. Before that, one visits the Asklepion. This was a healing temple and "spa" facility. Their methods were pretty weird, from what we were told. The patients had dreams while snakes swarmed around and on them and their dreams were a guide to their treatment. Witchdoctory stuff, to me. But dreams were appreciated in a different way in the ancient world and in the East and Middle East today.

The cool thing about Smyrna was that we ran into the same group of "free" Chinese that we met in Pergamom. Esther was very friendly. They showed up about ten minutes after us.

Following are from the Smyrna site.

We visited a Greek village near Izmir for dinner. The Turks and Greeks have a difficult history. After WWI and with the advent of "modern Turkey" under Ataturk, the Greeks living in Turkey and the Turks living in Greece were supposed to change places and migrate back to their home country. Most did, although many went to the U.S. or other places (more Greeks than Turks). The Greeks who stayed had a hard time of it, being Christians and a minority.

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