Kaloi Limenes, Crete © 2016 Simon Peter Sutherland

I have recently returned to England from my visit to the Greek island of Crete.

Travelling thousands of miles across Biblical landscape is always insightful and my primary goal on Crete was to seek out the historic locations written about in Acts 27 and Paul’s letter to Titus. My desire was to gain a more historic understanding of Titus 3: 5;

“for this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are wanting”.

2000 years ago Paul gave commission to Titus to appoint elders in every city on Crete. My aim in visiting Crete was to discover those ancient cities and gain an historic understanding of the work Titus did on Crete. Along the way standing face to face with the ancient law code of Gortyna, the mysteries of the Phaistos disc, ancient Minoan culture, and in some cases frustration at the sheer amount of unexcavated sites, leading to a general lack of information.

Kaloi Limenes ‘Fair Havens’ Crete © 2016 Simon Peter Sutherland

However, travelling over 100 miles across the island, visiting the ancient cities of Heraklion, Gortyna, Lasea and the spectacular mountains to port of ‘Kalio Limenes’ (fair havens) proved insightful to the Biblical narrative yet left many unanswered questions.

Part of the reason for this is that much of the history of ancient Crete has little connection to the New Testament era. Ancient cities such as Knossos have connections but they were long gone by the 1^st century AD. But Gortyna and Kalio Limenes are key locations.

The Church of St. Titus, Gortyna © 2016 Simon Peter Sutherland