By The Rev. Jeehei Park, PhD, Assistant Professor of New Testament
Fourteen members of Seminary of the Southwest, together with four friends from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary (APTS), traveled to Türkiye and Greece from May 24 to June 6. It was a journey rich with adventure, exploration, fellowship, and laughter.
This trip was intended to be more than a pilgrimage. I encouraged students to imagine the world in which the earliest followers of Christ lived—earning their livelihoods, engaging with people of varied backgrounds, and passing by temples dedicated to the imperial cult—while wrestling with how to define and live out their faith. We stood in a third-century shop in the heart of Sardis owned by a Jewish merchant, read an inscription in Pergamon that hailed a Roman emperor as kyrios, and walked the Via Egnatia, the ancient road linking the Adriatic Sea to Istanbul since the second century CE. In these encounters, participants saw that Christianity was never born in isolation; from its earliest days, it was embedded in complex political, cultural, and social contexts—just as our faith today cannot be separated from our own. Many expressed that the trip profoundly broadened and transformed their understanding of the New Testament.
Our travels were extensive: Istanbul, Ephesos, Sardis, Pergamon, Assos, Kavala, Philippi, Thessaloniki, Meteora, Delphi, Corinth, and Athens. Yet each day was marked by joy as we shared meals, rides, and conversation. I was deeply grateful for the openness and curiosity everyone brought as they engaged new cultures—from tasting unfamiliar dishes to navigating local customs. It was a special delight to share the road with our friends from APTS, including Dr. Rod Caruthers, with whom I co-led the trip, and to be guided by our beloved companions, Gülin Pazaroğlu and Niki Vlachou, whose deep knowledge was matched by their humor, kindness, and warmth.
Ellen Huckabay, Southwest Master of Divinity senior, shared, “The travel seminar to Turkey and Greece was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to explore early Christianity under the expert guidance of Dr. Jeehei Park and Dr. Rodney Caruthers. I feel incredibly privileged to have visited the lands where some of the first, tender shoots of the Christian religion germinated and began to take root. Immersing myself in the historical and cultural context of the early church has profoundly shaped my understanding of the New Testament and will continue to inform my exegesis and theology for years to come. Dr. Park often reminded us that we were not on a spiritual pilgrimage to follow the footsteps of Paul, and she was right! The seminar experience was something much deeper: an academic and theological engagement that not only enhanced my studies in biblical and church history but also strengthened my spiritual formation and vocation as a priest.”
I proposed this trip in hopes of reigniting and expanding our travel seminar program, and it would not have been possible without the steadfast support of Dr. Scott Bader-Saye and Mr. Fred Clement. I am deeply grateful to these two leaders—and to every participant—for affirming the enduring value of such firsthand experience.
“One of my favorite moments came in a kitchen, not a cathedral,” reflected Tina Francis Mutungu, Southwest Master of Divinity senior. “A family welcomed us for an olive oil tasting that became a quiet Eucharist of everyday things: tomatoes from a neighbor’s garden, thick Greek yogurt drizzled with oil, briny feta, dark chocolate with sea salt, and cinnamon-dusted semolina halva—dense, earthy, sweet. We ate, we laughed, we nodded in the kind of silence that speaks its own benediction. It wasn’t liturgy, but it was grace poured out like oil in a language we didn’t need to translate. Maybe that grace was for all of us—for the travelers and the hosts, for those at the table and those who came before us.
