Church Remains Discovered in Ancient Turkish City

Archeologists have unearthed remains of a church in an ancient city in the Mediterranean province of Isparta, head of the team said on Monday.

World Bulletin:

Archeologists have unearthed remains of a church in an ancient city in the Mediterranean province of Isparta, head of the team said on Monday.

Associate Professor Mehmet Ozhanli, the head of Suleyman Demirel University’s Archeology Department who heads excavations in the ancient city of Pisidian Antioch, said they had discovered remains of a church during their excavations.

“We have found the remains of a three-nave church one and a half meters below the surface,” Ozhanli told AA correspondent.

Ozhanli said the building was constructed as a Pagan temple, however it was converted to a church after the spread of Christianity.

“This is the fifth church we have brought to daylight in this ancient city,” Ozhanli said.

Ozhanli said this recently found church was also below the Men Temple, and the number of churches in the area rose to six.

“This indicates that this area was an important center for Christianity, and it was the capital of Pisidia,” Ozhanli said.

Pisidian Antioch (also called Antioch-of-Pisidia) was a major Roman colony that was visited by St. Paul on his First Missionary Journey. Pisidian Antioch marked an important turning point in Paul’s ministry, as the city became the first to have a fully Gentile Christian community.

Situated on the southern foothills of the Sultan Mountains, Pisidian Antioch was spread over seven small hills in a manner reminiscent of Rome…

Around 50 AD, Paul and Barnabas visited the city and established a Christian community. The city continued to prosper in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, and in 295 AD it became the capital of Pisidia, a new province created by Diocletian. The theater was enlarged and anew agora and porticoes were built.

Antioch was the seat of the bishops of Pisidia, including Bishop Optimus who attended the Council of Constantinople in 381. There is no evidence of any churches before the 4th century, and Christians were actively persecuted under the governor of Pisidia in the early 4th century, Valerius Diogenes. But by the end of the 4th century, when persecuted had ceased, Antioch had between one and three church buildings.

Archaeological interest in Pisidian Antioch has been ongoing since its re-discovery in 1833 by British Chaplain F.V.J. Arundell.

The Ordinariate Has Made A Strong Start…

But Rome needs to keep a watchful eye on the project:

With 60 newly ordained clergy ready to start their Catholic ministry, morale is high in the Personal Ordinariate of our Lady of Walsingham. The launch of the Pope’s new ecclesial structure for ex-Anglicans has been less traumatic than anticipated – though there is an urgent need for money: visit the website of the Friends of the Ordinariate to find out how to support this prophetic venture.

I say “prophetic”, but we can’t take it for granted that the prophecy will be fulfilled. Every day brings fresh inquiries from Anglicans wanting to join the second wave of Ordinariate converts – but some of them are worried that the independent structure envisaged by Benedict XVI is coming together rather slowly.

I think the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is in charge of the setting up of Ordinariates worldwide, needs to ask some tough questions…

Read on here.

Nascar Prayer

Here is the so-called invocation at the Nascar Nationwide series race in Nashville. Now if this is what prayer has been reduced to, I see no point in praying…

Cool in the eyes of the world I’m sure…

Is a Master’s the New Bachelor’s?

Via First Thoughts:

Has it really come to this?

Call it credential inflation. Once derided as the consolation prize for failing to finish a Ph.D. or just a way to kill time waiting out economic downturns, the master’s is now the fastest-growing degree. The number awarded, about 657,000 in 2009, has more than doubled since the 1980s, and the rate of increase has quickened substantially in the last couple of years, says Debra W. Stewart, president of the Council of Graduate Schools. Nearly 2 in 25 people age 25 and over have a master’s, about the same proportion that had a bachelor’s or higher in 1960.

“Several years ago it became very clear to us that master’s education was moving very rapidly to become the entry degree in many professions,” Dr. Stewart says. The sheen has come, in part, because the degrees are newly specific and utilitarian. These are not your general master’s in policy or administration. Even the M.B.A., observed one business school dean, “is kind of too broad in the current environment.” Now, you have the M.S. in supply chain management, and in managing mission-driven organizations. There’s an M.S. in skeletal and dental bioarchaeology, and an M.A. in learning and thinking.

A master’s in “learning and thinking?” Seriously?