The last of the ruins photos–the Hagia Sophia in Iznik. Blah blah blah icons. I took no photographs of Pergamon nor of Ephesus. Too mind boggling to reduce to a snapshot, which really is what I take. It was well worth the tie spent to tour both places but while the experience was moving, I just thick pics of fallen down rock is all that griping. Or funny. or any of the either reasons I snap photos. So I leave you in the able hands of Google Pictures. But this ancient basilica, home to the second Nicene council, moved me. All the more so for my having been so recently in the church in Torda, Transylvania where the edict protecting people of my faith from death by fire was agreed to and proclaimed. The Nicene basilica is today a living mosque, with faithful Muslims praying alongside workers carefully restoring the building for the benefit of Christian pilgrims. The second Nicene council, like the council of Torda, marked an effort to find a third way–a way to resolve a religious dispute. It was a council that kept the eastern and western Christian church together, if only for another 150 years. For that reason, it moves me. Well, that and the delight I take in really, really old mosaics!