The Port Of Neapolis (Kavala), Greece

by David Padfield

 

In the sixteenth chapter of Acts we find Paul at the city of Troas in what is now western Turkey. Paul saw a vision in the night of a man of Macedonia who stood and pleaded, "Come over to Macedonia and help us" (Acts 16:6-10). The door of faith was opened to Paul and he was about to take the gospel from Asia to Europe. After receiving this Macedonian Call, he boarded a ship and sailed to the northwest and came to Neapolis, known today as Kavala, in northern Greece. Neapolis was the regular landing place for those who desired to travel by the Egnatian Way, the great Roman military highway stretching some 490 miles across Macedonia, linking the Adriatic with the Aegean Sea.

Leaving the seaport he traveled north to Philippi which was 12 miles inland. It was in this city that Paul preached the gospel on European soil for the first time, first to Lydia and her household, and then to the Philippian jailer and his family.