Viewers can follow one of the most intriguing figures in the Christian faith in Wales on a pilgrimage from his Orthodox Church in Blaenau Ffestiniog to some of the faith's important centres around the world in a fascinating three-part S4C documentary series.
Taith y Tad Deiniol (Father Deiniol's Journey) which starts on Tuesday, 9 December, follows the engaging priest as he reaches out to fellow Orthodox Church believers in Macedonia in the Balkans, New York and Wichita, Kansas in the USA and Istanbul and Cappadoccia in Turkey.
The series is produced and strikingly directed by Pete Telfer of mid Wales-based TV company, Pixel Foundry, who was a pupil of Tad Deiniol's at Ysgol Ardudwy secondary school, Harlech. Poet Twm Morys, who has a passionate interest in the Orthodox Church, is the series' narrator.
As well as following Father Deiniol to Europe, Asia and America, we also learn more about the spiritual journey that led him to become an Orthodox priest in the slate area of Blaenau Ffestiniog for the last 25 years His church is one of only a few Orthodox missions in Wales and Father Deiniol knows that keeping in touch with the worldwide church is vital for Blaenau Ffestiniog's Church of All Saints of Wales.
"The church in Blaenau Ffestiniog does feel quite far geographically from other missions, so it is vital that we build a close friendship with churches all over the world. It makes us aware that we are part of a much larger spiritual community and we can learn a great deal from these followers. They, in turn, are interested in what is being achieved in Wales and in the recent and ancient history of the Orthodox Church in our country," says Father Deiniol.
Father Deiniol first became involved with the Orthodox faith as a teenager in Wrexham. He believes that one of the Church's greatest assets is that it dates back to the early Christian church and to the age of the Celtic saints in Wales from the fifth century onwards. This link to the Welsh saints is so important to the Church and Father Deiniol that the Blaenau Ffestiniog church is consecrated to the Welsh saints. In the first programme, we discover how the mission renovated an empty church in the town and decorated it with icons of these saints.
The burning interest in the ancient saints and wells of Wales is evident among the leaders of the Orthodox faith in the USA as Father Deiniol discovers in the second programme, when he visits New York and Wichita, Kansas.
In the final programme, we discover an interest in the Church from a more unlikely source as Father Deiniol visits some of the faith's important sites in Turkey. He visits Istanbul (once known as Constantinople, and still considered the faith's mother church) and also the mountain areas of Cappadocia in the company of the owner of Porthmadog's kebab house, Gencay Zorlu who hails from this area. There, he has a chance meeting with the faith's Patriarch and searches for the home of a saint who prophesised that the Orthodox faith would one day again flourish in the British Isles.
But the series starts by discovering how the church in Blaenau Ffestiniog has developed and follows Father Deiniol to Macedonia where he visits a striking monastery in the mountains above the capital, Skopje. The monastery has survived decades under a communist system that did not encourage Christian worship and has re-established itself as a dynamic monastery with a staggering collection of frescoes dating back seven centuries.
© 2010 S4C
O Gymru / Made in Wales