St. Paul's Pillar

The name St. Paul’s Pillar is attached to a small corner of Rhodes lore, and it is worth separating the documented history from the legend. What is well recorded is that the Apostle Paul stopped briefly on Rhodes during his voyage toward Jerusalem. The Acts of the Apostles says that he sailed from Kos to Rhodes and the next day went on to Patara, which suggests a short call at the port rather than a long stay. No ancient source describes a monument, and nothing in the Acts mentions flogging or imprisonment on the island, since the beatings and jail recorded elsewhere in the text took place on the mainland.

Local tradition has its own geography. The best known site linked with Paul on the island is the small bay beneath the acropolis of Lindos, now called St Paul’s Bay, where a little white chapel stands on the shore and the apostle is said to have come ashore. People sometimes call Kameiros, the ancient city on the west coast, another place to think of the journey, which is why the pillar's name is linked to the ruins in popular accounts, though the connection is a matter of tradition and not evidence.

Kameiros is certainly worth a visit in its own right. It was one of the three ancient cities of Rhodes, along with Lindos and Ialysos, and was founded by the Dorians. It was later abandoned after the new city of Rhodes was founded in 408 BC, so it survives as a rare, frozen Hellenistic town. Walking uphill from the entrance, you pass streets, houses arranged in terraces, a large cistern that supplied water, remains of a temple and a long colonnade, the Doric stoa. Hellenistic and Roman repairs are visible in places, and the whole settlement looks down toward the sea.

The excavations were carried out by Italian archaeologists in the early twentieth century, and the site has the feel of a working archaeological park, with grass, wildflowers and little shade. Visiting early or late in the day is best in summer, and the views of the Aegean Sea toward the island of Chalki can be exceptional at sunset.

For readers interested in the early Christian story and the spread of Christianity in Europe, and in Greece in particular, the story of Paul's travels through the islands is a good frame, and a visit can combine the quiet ruins of Kameiros with the chapel at St Paul’s Bay. The Old Town of Rhodes and Lindos both give more of the island's history.