A mountaintop view

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The view from the top of Mount Tabor.

Happy Feast of the Transfiguration to all who celebrate it today.

My posts explaining the day, the event, and the place are waiting for you here.  Welcome.

A video of local Christians camping on Mt. Tabor and making merry on the eve of the feast day.
A brief video about Mt. Tabor. 
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(Linking to SkyWatch Friday.)
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Orthodox Holy Week in a dome

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Orthodox Christians are now in Holy Week.
Here are all the events of Holy Week, starting with the raising of Lazarus, in one beautiful dome.
Click on the photo 2x to see all the details.

The dome is on the Orthodox church, St. Elias,  on the summit of Mount Tabor.

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Kali thinamis, good strength, to the Orthodox Christian friends.
It has been a very long and strict Lenten fast for them.
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On Mount Tabor

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 From the top of Mount Tabor you can see in all four directions.
The fertile Jezreel Valley lies below. 

In Christian tradition Tabor is identified as the Mount of Transfiguration, on top of which Jesus was transfigured.
In Israel the Feast of the Transfiguration is celebrated in the summer, in August I think.
But for some (so I hear from Christian friends in the USA), today is the day.
So happy Transfiguration Sunday to those denominations which  mark it today. 
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(More about the holiday and Mt. Tabor in my earlier posts.)
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Solitary work atop Mt. Tabor

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Restoration was supposed to be yesterday's R word, until I found out it was Rodin's birthday.
Rodin won, but the restoration in the Romanian church on the top of Mount Tabor in the Lower Galilee certainly deserves a post too, so here it is.

 There is a man working up there on the scaffold.
You'll have to do the click trick to see him, and then another click on the photo that opens to see the man really well.

I think it was the top (canopy?) of the throne (cathedra) that he was meticulously  painting.
He seemed aware that the saints on the dome above him were watching him work.

The Eastern Orthodox monastery  was built in the mid-19th century with funds from Romania.
The Church of St. Elias was dedicated to the prophet Elijah and was the first religious structure built by Romanian Christians in the Holy Land.

The wall paintings (all around!) were added in 1912. 

The Orthodox place is totally different in feeling and appearance from its more famous neighbor on Mt. Tabor,  Barluzzi's Church of the Transfiguration.

 A Catholic friend took me there in August for the Franciscan Mass on the Feast of the Transfiguration.
I'll show you more pictures from the mountain sometime soon.
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Feast at the Church of the Transfiguration

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The festive Mass for the Feast of the Transfiguration was broadcast live as streaming video.

Hundreds ascended to the top of Mount Tabor, believed to be the place of Jesus' transfiguration, and packed the beautiful Franciscan basilica.

Father Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Custodian of the Holy Land, and many other priests conducted Mass in the upper part of the church.
Enlarge the first photo to appreciate the splendid golden mosaic.


Cameras of the Franciscan Media Center were grinding away (including one on a huge long boom).

The view of the Jezreel Valley from the top of Mt. Tabor, the lone rounded mountain in the region, was splendid.
Someone really picked a good place for the transfiguration.
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UPDATE: Archbishop Pizzaballa is no longer the Custos of the Holy Land.  He is now the Apostolic Administrator of Jerusalem.

For more about Mt. Tabor and the Transfiguration please see my posts here.

(Linking to inSPIRED Sunday.)
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Mount Tabor

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For That's My World I wanted to show you Mount Tabor, as seen from the bus that goes between Jerusalem and Tiberias.

When the bus turns toward the flat, fertile Jezreel Valley, you suddenly see a mountain looming in the distance. It is only 460 meters above the valley floor, but still it "looms."

The hill is strategically located on the main north-south ancient road and was an important fortress during the First and Second Temple, Greek, Roman and Crusader times--the scene of many battles. This Via Maris (Derech Hayam) went from Egypt to Damascus and was one of the most important trade routes in the ancient Middle East.

If you click the photos you can see agriculture on the slopes.

Around the base of Mt. Tabor are Arab villages such as Deburiah and Iksal and the Bedouin Shibli-Umm al-Ghanam.

About half of the population of Galilee (Israel's northern region) are Arab citizens.

In Christian tradition Tabor is identified as the Mount of Transfiguration, on top of which Jesus was transfigured.

Today both the Franciscans and the Greek Orthodox have monasteries on the mountaintop.

You can see the outline here of the Church of the Transfiguration.

The site is accessible by car only from the north side, by a winding narrow road.

Or, you can always climb the 4,300 stairs that were built in the 4th century for the Christian pilgrims.

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Psalms 89:12 names two mountains:

"The north and the south thou hast created them: Tabor and Hermon shall rejoice in thy name."

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For wonderful aerial photos of Mt. Tabor see http://www.biblewalks.com/Sites/Tabor.html.
and a Franciscan video about the mountain and the church on top. 

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