Ancient site· Maçka, Trabzon
Sumela Monastery
Sümela Manastırı
Sumela Monastery is a ancient site in Maçka, Trabzon; Cliff-built Byzantine monastery the Pontic monks fled in 1923 after burying its icon in the rock.
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Directions, the audio guide and one nearby stop: everything needed for the next decision.
Practical info
- Location
- 40.6900°N · 39.6583°E
Cliff-built Byzantine monastery the Pontic monks fled in 1923 after burying its icon in the rock.
Editor's Note
Sumela Monastery is a Greek Orthodox monastery and church complex set on the slope of Karadağ within the Altındere Valley National Park in the Maçka district of Trabzon, at an altitude of about 1,150 meters above sea level. Built in AD 386, it was left empty for a time after the 1923 population exchange between Turkey and Greece, and today serves as a museum open to visitors.
Read more on Wikipedia →Highlights
- Architectural remains from antiquity
- The layered history of Anatolian civilizations
Story
Sumela clings to a cliff face 1,200 metres up the Altındere valley. The story goes that two Athenian monks followed an icon of the Virgin painted by St Luke himself, found it in a cave on this cliff, and built a monastery around it in 386. The icon left in 1923 with the last monks during the population exchange, hidden in the rock until they could send for it.
Did you know
- The frescoes inside still show 18th-century Pontic Greek iconography, partly restored.
- A natural spring inside the cave was considered miraculous and pilgrimaged for over 1,500 years.
- The icon now sits in the Soumela Monastery near Veria, Greece — sent for by the monks in the 1930s.
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