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Mars Hill, also called the Areopagus, is a rocky hill below the Acropolis in Athens where the Apostle Paul preached his famous sermon to the Greek philosophers.
The bare rock still stands, worn smooth by centuries, looking up at the Parthenon and out over ancient Athens. It was the meeting place of the city's council, and the setting for one of the most brilliant moments in the Book of Acts.
To stand here and read Paul's speech is a highlight of any journey through Greece.
Paul stood before the philosophers of Athens and preached about the God they had honored without knowing, whom they had marked with an altar to an unknown god.
He turned their own altar and their own poets into a bridge to the Gospel, one of the most skillful pieces of preaching ever recorded.
Why does Mars Hill matter to pilgrims?
It is where the Christian message met the great intellectual world of Greece head on, and held its ground. Standing on Mars Hill, facing the temples Paul faced, pilgrims feel the courage of what he did. One man, with a new message, before the philosophers of the most learned city on earth. It stirs boldness in people's own faith.
In Athens, Greece, on a rocky outcrop just below the Acropolis. It is a central stop on footsteps of Paul pilgrimages through Greece.
Yes. You can climb the ancient rock of the Areopagus itself, look up at the Parthenon, and read Paul's sermon from Acts 17 on the spot.
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