Saint Phothios Chapel.
Good Friday morning.
I drive to Saint Augustine almost every Friday. It’s about one hour’s drive from Jacksonville, where I live. I take the A1A south route along the Atlantic Ocean coast, for the views are out of this world: palm trees and luxurious vegetation beautiful houses and big mansions built right on the beaches.
As I drive along the narrow, two way roads, from time to time, I can glimpse the ocean waters, sometimes furious with big waves crunching on the shores, other times calm, smooth like oil.
I like to go on Fridays to avoid the weekend crowds of visitors, for St. Augustine is the oldest town in America where the Spaniards first descended. It has its time old buildings and narrow streets, an enchanting little town where the time stood still for centuries.
On George Street, the main historic route, it’s located the Saint Phothios Capel, a small Greek Orthodox Church.
As the story goes, when they were digging for some construction, the workers found a cross and the chapel were built on that location. It is an enchanted little place with an inside garden adorned with blue flowers and white benches , and inside the chapel the walls are skillfully painted and adorned with icons of Crist and other saints and angles.
As you approach the altar there are two marble boxes full of sand where the candles are lighted, one on the left side facing the icon of Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus, is for the wishes of the living souls, and on the right side, the one for the souls of the departed ones overlooked by the icon of St. Zacharias.
Old and precious icons and artifacts adorned the walls of the other two little chambers.
I go there every Friday morning to light candles for myself on the left side, and for my dear departed ones on the right side.
Phothos means light, and it’s the place where I go to feel closer to God. It’s hardly anyone there on Friday mornings. I can pray in peace and light my candles.
So, on Good Friday that was yesterday, for in orthodox Christianity the Easter is today, I went to light candles. As the Christ is raised from the death on Holy Saturday at midnight, so the deaths are risen from the graves and ascend to Heaven with the Christ, or so the bible says.
After I finished, I went to sit on the bench in the interior church’s garden. It was so peaceful!
Then I heard a scream, a beastly scream, coming from behind the church’s thick walls, and my heart stopped. For I recognized the devil’s roaring trying to get as many souls as it could.
Think what you may, but I know that the battles are going on for centuries, between invisible forces of good and bad, between the right and wrong, between God and Devil, between peoples’ God and Evil People.
REA-SILVIA COSTIN, P.E. . 2024
Your drive along the coast, St. Augustine and your description of the chapel are so wonderful that I wish that I had had the time and good fortune to have visited there in all my travels.
The ending was a rather surprise, leading me to believe that you put a little friction into the story to emphasize your concern about evil always waiting in society to surprise and confront us.
Saint Phothios Chapel.
