PILGRIMAGE

What happens when a pilgrimage to Jerusalem becomes a journey into oneself?

PILGRIMAGE is the true account of Mavro, founder of ASH (www.AbrahamicStudyHall.org) where for more than a decade he has published theological studies and reflections.

It tells the story of a ninety-four-day journey from Cassino, Italy-known in ancient times as the "Gate of Rome"-to Jerusalem. Nearly 2,800 kilometers travelled largely on foot, across Italy, the Balkans, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, and finally the Holy Land.

Setting out carrying no money or credit cards of his own, Mavro was determined to rely on faith, human generosity, and the hospitality he would encounter along the way. He refused rides across the land and tracked every step with an app that recorded his route and the distance he walked. He slept on the street, in monasteries, on the carpets of mosques, in churches and abandoned buildings, sharing food and conversation with Christians, Muslims, Jews, monks, imams, refugees, workers, families, and strangers.

Yet this is not simply a travel memoir.

As the kilometers accumulate, the road becomes a place of reflection on GOD, faith, suffering, gratitude, solitude, human nature, religious division, and the possibility of genuine brotherhood among the children of Abraham.

From the ancient Via Egnatia to Mount Athos, from Istanbul and the Anatolian plateau to Jerusalem, each encounter becomes part of a larger meditation: how much do human beings truly need, what does it mean to trust Providence, and why do people who worship the same GOD so often struggle to recognize one another as brothers and sisters?

PILGRIMAGE is a personal testimony rather than a lesson in faith. It does not ask the reader to follow a particular doctrine, but to walk alongside one man as the road gradually strips away certainties, comforts, fears, and divisions.

A journey toward Jerusalem.
A search for what remains when everything unnecessary is left behind.