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Arriving in Cappadocia, the ancient district in east-central Anatolia famous for its fantastic geological formations and cave habitations, one can easily understand why this hallucinogenic landscape has been steeped in myth and religion since ancient times. The shapeshifting volcanic panorama has been sculpted by erosion and uplift to form a spectacular succession of ridges, valleys, towers and pinnacles, the soft volcanic tufa rock whipped into otherworldly ‘hoodoo’ landforms of cones, mushrooms and turbans that look like the work of a celestial prankster.
The more bizarre phallic protrusions are known locally as ‘fairy chimneys’. Göreme National Park and the Rock Sites of Cappadocia, bounded on the south and east by ranges of extinct volcanoes, was designated a Unesco world heritage site in 1985 for the concentration of rock-hewn dwellings, troglodyte villages and underground cities as well as the fragile beauty of its 300-odd rock churches, about half of which are decorated with Byzantine carvings and wall paintings.
Cappadocia’s precarious position on the eastern border of the Byzantine empire has determined both its chequered history and deep-rooted multiculturalism. Variously occupied by Hittites, Assyrians, Phrygians and Lydians, in the sixth century BC it came under Persian rule when Zoroastrian religious cults were widespread and, latterly, it became a Roman province. St Peter wrote to Christian exiles here in AD62, and the first signs of monastic activity date back to the fourth century, under the influence of the early church father Basil the Great, Bishop of Kayseri. Fraternal settlements were established that endured 1,000 years.
As well as Basil, early religious communities, who inhabited cells hewn into the rock, followed the teachings of Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa. The region also attracted followers of the Syrian Christian ascetic St Simeon Stylites, who achieved notoriety in the fourth century by living for 37 years on a small platform on top of a pillar near Aleppo.
When in 1997 I visited Cappadocia with photographer Henry Bourne, the open-air museum at Göreme – with its concentration of comparatively accessible monastic settlements and rock churches like Karanlık Kilise, the Dark Church – was awash with people, coaches and hot-air balloons. But you could easily wander off the tourist map and get lost in this fragile and evocative landscape. In the hands of a knowledgeable local guide, we explored the valleys of Güllüdere and Kızılçukur, which stretch south behind the quiet village of Cavuşin. At first, the path leads through orchards and vineyards, fringed with willow and oleander trees, but soon you enter a narrow valley walled in by cliffs and ripples of giant tufa cones. Small apertures and cave-like entrances puncturing the soft pinkish-ochre cliffs are pretty much the only hint of life within.
Uç Haçlı Kilise, the Church of the Three Crosses, consists of a series of interlocking chambers, with a massive Byzantine cross deeply incised into the low ceiling and partially blackened by smoke. Such crosses date from the Iconoclastic period of the eighth and ninth centuries, when monks were forced to use geometric designs instead of human images. The frescoes would have been added later. In the apse is an image of Christ enthroned in majesty, deftly fitted to the curved roof as though seen through a fish-eye lens.
Perhaps the most extraordinary site we visited was in the Red Valley: Kolonlu Kilise (Column Church), an architectural masterpiece hollowed out of chalky white rock that, despite its small scale, seems to swell to the size of a cathedral. It seems improbable that such a place was only ‘discovered’ in 1989, until you start to look for it yourself. We arrived in the valley late in the afternoon. Despite our guide’s mobile phone calls with a colleague back at the tour office who was thought to have visited the site a few years ago, we were soon forced to give up due to the failing light.
That evening we tracked down the keeper of a pension in Cavuşin who was believed to have ‘discovered’ Column Church. He scrawled a map of the valley on an old bill and explained how to find it. The next morning, we returned to continue the search. After a couple of hours scrambling around the crumbly rocks, we found the church a few hundred yards from where we had left off the night before. The entrance is up a narrow, steep stone staircase that gives no clue of the cruciform cave church to come. One gazes up at the barrel-vaulted nave, with its smooth walls and worn beams, as if from within a giant ribcage. The wonky grandeur illuminated by shafts of light is truly awe-inspiring.
How this singular piece of religious architecture came about is almost as mysterious as what remains. That many of the churches and dwellings are only metres apart indicates that these valleys were well populated in Late Antiquity, when silk and spice routes ran nearby, and monks also travelled considerable distances. Remote as the region might seem, ideas travelled fast. Scholars have connected paintings here with frescoes as far away as Thessaloniki, Greece, while some of the rock churches have been found to relate to designs of famous free-standing buildings in Kayseri and Istanbul.
This strange monastic community seems to have come to an end with the arrival of the Seljuk Turks in the late 11th century. After the churches were abandoned, many later became used for storage. During the Ottoman empire, Christians and Muslims cohabited in Cappadocia until the Greco-Turkish population exchange in 1923 terminated the Christian presence in the region. That some frescoes have been defaced, with eyes and faces scratched out, likely reflects the resultant shift away from Christianity. It was only in the 20th century, thanks primarily to French archaeologists, that the rarity and importance of Cappadocia’s religious architecture came to be recognised. Today, rather incongruously given that it was once the home of heretics and experimental religious sects, Anatolia is an important power base for President Erdoğan.
A version of this article also appeared in the March 2025 issue of ‘The World of Interiors’. Learn about our subscription offers. Sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter, and be the first to receive exclusive stories like this one, direct to your inbox
