Goreme Open Air Museum

The Buckle Church is the largest and most decorated cave church in Cappadocia. It is also the oldest rock-cut church in Goreme Open Air Museum and one of the earliest in Goreme Valley. Built at around 960, the church is arguably the most significant in the museum. Here is why.

According to the church’s archeological remains, it was inspired by a simple hermitage of a solitary monk. In 915, the Old Tokali Church was carved next to this hermitage and instantly became a busy pilgrimage site because of the holy monk living in the hermitage.

This influx of pilgrims necessitated the need to carve an even larger church, and thus, the New Tokali Church came into being. This new church was so important that the Old Tokali Church’s sacred apse had to be demolished. The New Tokali Church also has the best-detailed paintings of any rock-cut church in Cappadocia.

The paintings attempt to narrate the life of Christ. They include the Infancy, Miracles, and Passion paintings. Some scenes tell of Saint Basil’s life: Basil and Emperor Valens, The Dispute for the Church of Nicaea, Meeting of St. Ephraim, Prayer of the Orthodox, Absolution of the Sinful Woman, and Funeral of Basil.

Costly blue pigments and even real gold were used to achieve this level of decoration in the New Tokali Church. These materials are quite expensive and leave you wondering, who funded the projects? On the nave cornice, there is a sentence fragment that states that the church was entirely decorated with the depictions of Constantine.

A second inscription at the north apse also mentions Leon, the son of Constantine, and the artist responsible for the decorations- Nikophoros.

In the Old Church, depictions are painted in rich red and green bands and attempt to depict scenes from the Bible. These scenes show the Christological cycle while there are others of Old Testament Prophets and saints.

Another church with paintings that blow the mind away is the Dark Church. You will have to pay an extra 25TL to be admitted into the church, but the excellent conditions of the church’s wall paintings are worth a look.

The church gets its name from the fact that lighting comes from the fact that very little light gets in, and since exposure to sunlight tends to destroy the colors, this is why the church’s paintings are still intact. As a result, no photography is allowed as the camera flashes tend to destroy paintings.

The church was carved between the end of the 12th and the beginning of the 13th centuries. It is a domed church with three apses, one main and two small ones, and four columns. Decorations in the church show scenes from the New Testament. These include Adoration of Magi, Last Supper, Crucifixion, Betrayal of Judas, Anastasis, First Bath, Nativity, and Christ Pantocrator.

When the Ottoman Turks conquered the region, The Dark Church was converted into a pigeon house until the 1950s. This means, it became a private residence of the villager who kept the church away from human erosion, that led the church to be preserved either on purpose or accidentally. It took researchers 14 years to completely restore the church, revealing the best-preserved wall paintings in the whole of Cappadocia.

This chapel was carved in the second half of the 11th century as a tribute to the Martyr-Saint Barbara. According to the story, the Greek martyr was imprisoned by her father, who wanted to stop her from practicing Christianity. Nonetheless, she still found a way, and as a result, her father tortured and killed her.

The chapel was carved with a cruciform plan. It has a cross-dome with three apses, one central and two side, and two columns. The west, north, and south arms of the cruciform are barrel-vaulted while the east arm, east corners, and the center are domed.

There is a motif depicting Christ on the Throne and red ochre geometric patterns painted directly on the rock on the cross-dome. There is also a painting of a large locust with two adjacent crosses and one of St. George and St Theodore on horse-back fighting the dragon and the snake.

There are red ochre lines on the rocks to give the impression that the monks used cut stones in the construction.

This cave church is named after the painting inside of St. George and St. Theodore slaying the dragon. It consists of two chambers and has a liner plane; depictions in the Snake Church date back to the 11th century and are painted directly to the wall.

Another famous depiction inside the Church is that of Emperor Constantine and his mother, Helena. In the painting, she is depicted holding the True Cross upon which Jesus was crucified, which she discovered after seeing it in a dream.

On the upper wall to the right of the entrance is a portrait of Saint Onuphrius, who lived as a hermit in the Egyptian desert near Thebes, Egypt. He is depicted with a long gray beard wearing only a fig leaf.

Another rock-cut church with vivid colors in the museum is Apple Church. It is smaller and was carved in the mid-11th century into four irregular pillars to support its central dome. The beautiful paintings in the church depict bishops, saints, and martyrs. We have the life of Christ, Three Hebrew Youth, and the Hospitality of Abraham. There is also the last supper depiction with the symbolic fish (the letters stand for ‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, the Savior.”

Even after the restoration was completed in 1991, the wall paintings continued to chip off. Underneath, they revealed a layer of earlier paintings, simple red-painted figures that date to the iconoclastic period. The structure is believed to get its name from an apple tree that grew outside or a reddish orb in the left hand of Archangel Michael.

The Church of Sandals gets its name from two footprints located at the church’s entrance at the bottom of the Ascension. The footprints have inspired many legends, many of which you will gear during your visit to the church.

The Carikli Kilise is a cross-vaulted church with three apses and four domes that date back to the end of the 12th century. The church is cut into the rock, same as the dark church, and scenes in the church including the Ascension, the Way of the Cross, the Descent from the Cross, the Baptism, the Four Evangelists, the Nativity, among other New Testament themes.

To the left of the museum, entrance is a 6 floors rock mass known as the Nunnery. There is a dining hall, a kitchen, some rooms on the first floor, and a chapel on the second level.

The third floor has a cruciform plan, three apses, and a dome with four columns. Here, there are depictions of Jesus and designs painted directly onto the rock. This level could be accessed via a tunnel, and other tunnels connecting the different levels and millstone doors like those found in the underground cities. The doors were used to block entry into the tunnels in times of danger.

Due to erosion risk, the nunnery is not open to visitors but offers excellent photos from different angles and lights.