Page 44 - Holyland Magazine - 2010 Edition

SAFE HbAyVthEeNsea
Acre has it all: towering medieval walls, a Mediterranean
seascape and a biblical past that is part of a saga uninterrupted
since its founding some 4,000 years ago.

What do Paul the Apostle, Marco Marco Polo stepped off a ship that brought And Sally Field? She was here to make the
him to Acre from Italy in 1271, on a 1991 film “Not Without My Daughter,”
Polo and Sally Field have in common? journey in the service of Pope Gregory X after location scouts found that Acre looked
They’ve all been to Acre over the past 2,000 to bring consecrated oil from the Church like the scene of the real-life events that
years. of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem to the inspired the film (Tehran in Iran), but would
court of Kublai Khan in China. be infinitely more welcoming.
When Paul came here, the original biblical
name of the city – Acco – was masked by
a Greek name: Ptolemais. As Acts 21:7
relates, Ptolemais was Paul’s next stop after
leaving Tyre, and it was home to one of the
earliest Christian communities in the land.

A lovingly cared-for church keeps
watch over Acre's massive walls,
which for centuries have withstood
the pounding waves of the biblical
Great Sea. Photo: Alexander Dvorak
and Yan Sherman

44 “We continued our voyage from Tyre and landed at Ptolemais, where we greeted the brothers and stayed with them for a day”