COMMENT from William.
Thank you William for your extreme interest in following my path in the Holyland sojourn.
Through the great hospitality of the monks of Latroun Abbey it was possible for me the make access to wonderful sacred places.
Thank you for taking such great interest in the Saint Saba’s focus.
| William writes: Please might you consider adding to the article 'Mar Saba' on your Blog the excerpt from your Holy Land Chronicle shown below? "More Surprises – Spring of St. Sabas I shall have to return to see “The Pluralistic Spiritual Centre” at Neve Shalom under construction, but my own discoveries continue at this very spot on learning of the association of St. Sabas with this place. In the course of lectures and expeditions we were introduced to the wonders of the Judean Desert Monasteries, e.g. What was my surprise to discover that Saint Sabas left his very successful laura at Mar Sabas, south of Bethlehem, because of rebellious monks settled at Nikopolis, the Byzantine name of Emmaus/Latroun, first as a hermit then as abba of the laura/monastery at this very place of Neve Shalom. ‘Fr. Rene (Prior} is going to take me down to the spring which supplied the monks with water. I have still to find if anything remains of the buildings. But how amazing! Even the Latroun booklet, printed in 1960s has no mention of this particular monastic settlement. It is also interesting that Murphy-O’Connor’s encyclopaedic “Holy Land”, (Oxford), shows a great partiality to the monastic sites which, owing to researches by young Israeli archaeologists, identifies at least 73 such ‘Judean Desert Monasteries’. This site, within the immediate environs of Latroun, is not actually in the Desert since the bulk of the hermitages, monasteries and lauras are within the confines of the extreme JudeanDesert. St. Sabas (439-532) founded eight monasteries in the Thank you for a fascinating article! An avid follower, In Our Lord, William. |
| Neve Shalom – Wāħat as-Salām From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia View of the village from Latrun Monastery Neve Shalom (Hebrew: נְוֵה שָׁלוֹם, lit. Oasis of Peace), also known as Wāħat as-Salām (Arabic: واحة السلام) is a cooperative village jointly founded by Israeli Arabs and Jews in an attempt to show that the two peoples can live side by side peacefully, as well as to conduct educational work for peace, equality and understanding between the two peoples. The village is located on one of the two Latrun hilltops, midway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, in the territory Israel has controlled since1967, which was until then no man's land between the Israeli and Jordanian lines. Falling under the jurisdiction of Mateh Yehuda Regional Council, in 2006 it had a population of 200. |
