TURKIYE: Sümela Monastery

Sümela Monastery is dramatically perched on a sheer cliff 300 metres (1,000 feet) above the valley below, in the Pontic Mountains near Trabzon, northern Türkiye.

It was founded in the 4th century AD, making it one of the oldest monasteries in the region.

The monastery was built into the cliff for a combination of religious, practical and defensive reasons.

Sümela Monastery is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and was an important center of Greek Orthodox Christianity, in primarily a Muslim country, for more than 1,500 years.

It is a popular spot, as there was a long and hot wait to get into the monastery. It was built in 4AD and the stairwells and passageways are narrow and surprisingly, they didn't have elevators back then.

According to tradition, two monks from Athens, Greece, discovered a miraculous icon of the Virgin Mary in a cave on the mountainside in the 4th century. 

The Monks were looking for a quiet place away from towns where they could devote themselves to prayer, study and contemplation without distraction. An added bonus to the cave was the steep cliff, making the spot difficult for raiders or bandits to attack. 

Over the centuries, the monastery expanded from a simple cave chapel into a large complex of chapels, monks' cells, kitchens, libraries, and guest rooms, all ingeniously built into the vertical rock face.

The monks at Sümela Monastery were surprisingly self-sufficient. A spring from the mountain provided fresh water and the monks cultivated small terraced gardens on the mountainside, growing vegetables, herbs and fruit where possible.

They kept goats, sheep, chickens and bees. Goats were especially well suited to the steep terrain, providing milk, cheese and meat. The surrounding forests supplied firewood, wild berries, mushrooms, medicinal plants and game.

The monks also relied on support from pilgrims and wealthy patrons. 

With the combination of natural resources, careful planning and centuries of patronage, the monastery remained inhabited for roughly 1,600 years. 

There isn't a precise historical record of how many monks lived at Sümela Monastery at any one time, but historians believe the resident community was typically between 20 and 50 monks. Given the size of the buildings, most historians estimate the monastery could comfortably accommodate 50–100 people when guests and pilgrims arrived. 

At its peak in the 18th and 19th centuries, Sümela was one of the most important Greek Orthodox monasteries in the Black Sea region. Inside are old Byzantine frescoes depicting scenes from the Bible and the lives of Christ and the Virgin Mary. 

You can see some of them have been defaced, particularly people’s faces. 

Sümela Monastery is no longer a functioning monastery. In1923 it was abandoned following the population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Since then it has operated primarily as a museum and historic site.

The monastery has undergone extensive restoration and rockfall protection work in recent years. You can see the netting and support beams.

No matter how pretty the setting is, and the fact that monks had beer and wine, John is still not interested in becoming a monk. 

And I am happy with that decision.