30. Travel Greece with a Bible in Your Suitcase | Burial Chamber | Philippi, Greece

Under this blue, square foundation is a burial chamber! Over this underground grave, a small pagan temple was erected in the second century B.C. where this human was worshiped. The pagan temple was erected, exceptionally, right over the grave of somebody, a real person.

Along the Ignatian Road, walking towards the site of the burial chamber/pagan temple, are numerous rocks and monuments. One of the more interesting stone monuments is labeled with a Latin inscription from the late Imperial Period – later Hadrian or Marcus Aurelius time period.

Latin inscription from the later Hadrian or Marcus Aurelius time period.
The underground burial chamber of a young man, a priest of the Cabeirian Mysteries.

Now, you have to know, that even the founders of the city were never buried in the city. Nobody was buried in the city! But we have this exceptional case of somebody so important to the people, for the society, who was buried in the city. His grave, underneath the foundations of a pagan temple, was found intact. And so, we know exactly who this man was by the inscriptions: a young man, priest of the Cabeirian Mysteries. Here we have a person who was a priest, practitioner of the ecstatic phenomenon and he was impressive to the people of Philippi. So, when he died, they buried him in the city to be an amulet for the city, a protection for the city and he was worshipped.

This young priest was a practitioner of ecstatic phenomenon. This ecstatic phenomenon, with predictions, and fire dancing, and other things, are mentioned in the Bible. We read about ecstatic phenomenon in Corinth, in the first letter to the Corinthians. A place of such rituals was the Island of Samothrace (opposite of Alexandroupoli) where the Apostle Paul spent an overnight before coming to Philippi (Acts 16:11.)

The Cabeirian Mysteries, like the Eleusinian Mysteries of Ilocandia, were mystical rituals regarding death, resurrection and theogony, and marriage between gods and humans. Phillip II met his wife, Olympias (Ολυμπια) at the Cabeirian Mysteries of Samothrace, and Son Alexander was born. Olympias, the Queen, claimed that Alexander was not Philipp’s son, but Zeus’ son – something that caused lots of inner problems in the family. Big problems.