This good fairy tale says that the strength of faith and spirit of Gerasimus allowed him not to be afraid of the lion, and the lion was evil only because there was a thorn in his paw. It says that a monk should have a strong spirit to remove thorns from his soul and the souls of his parish. There are many more stories and legends regarding Gerasimus, his lion, and the donkey who came to live with them, which in figurative form preach the basic principles of faith, such as humility, repentance, purification through the deprivation.
Traveling to the place of baptism on the Jordan River and the ancient monastery of Deir Hijleh takes only an hour and a half. This one and a half hours bring us to a fantastic story. The Jordan River is associated primarily with the baptism of Jesus Christ from John the Baptist. The place where these events took place is called in Arabic Qasr El Yahud - the court of the Jew. The centuries-old tradition of baptism was renewed after the signing of a peace treaty between Jordan and Israel. The border between the countries runs along the river, and only a few meters are divided between them. Not far from the place of baptism is one of the oldest monasteries on the Dead Sea - the monastery of St. Gerasimus. It was one of the first monasteries of Koinonia. The walls of the monastery remember the battles of Muslims and crusaders. The skulls of monks pretend to be the bones of the martyrs of the Persian conquest. A journey of ten kilometers takes us on a tour of twenty centuries. Do not miss this adventure on the Dead Sea.
