Cappadocia: Land of Hidden Cities and Fairy Chimneys

​The region of Cappadocia in central Turkey consists mainly of volcanic rock called tufa. The wind and weather shapes the rock into unusual formations. In Cappadocia, these formations are whimsically named “fairy chimneys.”

However, the most interesting forms made from tufa are man-made rather than weather-made. Think hidden underground cities and rock-cut churches!

Underground City

The Byzantine people who lived in Cappadocia took advantage of the soft rock and carved underground cities in the 7th century. I remember my brother and I digging tunnels in the sand and creating little cities out of snow, but these underground cities weren’t architectural hobbies, but necessary protection. In the 7th century, Arabs started raiding the region. The Byzantine people, who were Christian, and thus the enemy, would retreat to these underground cities and live in them during the raiding season to avoid the Arab raiders. When the danger was over, they moved back outside.

These cities could be 7 or 8 levels deep. On the bottom level there were wells for water. Huge millstones could be rolled in front of door openings so that enemies could not get in. They baked bread while smoke wafted through tall chimneys, built wine presses, crowded their sheep into bulbous rooms, and settled down for a while. People went to the bathroom in pots that they sealed with mud when full.

Everything was narrow and low-ceilinged, so either the Byzantine villagers were very small or they emerged not only pale as fish bellies at the end of the summer, but also hunchbacked with a permanent crick in their necks!

Our group had twenty or so people, and despite my desire to both hear the guide and get pictures that weren’t full of wind-breaker wearing tourists, I was one of the last people down the steep tunnel. I’m not claustrophobic per se, but the idea of having twenty slow-moving people between me and the only way out in a room where I can’t even stand up straight is not appealing. Only the threat of raiders could have kept me down there for more than the 40 minute length of our tour!

Rock-Cut Churches

Less claustrophobia-inducing but no less cool are the churches carved out of the tufa. Rather than being underground, these were often up a flight of stairs or even with the ground. The ceilings were much higher, which makes architectural sense as most churches seem to have higher ceilings, but makes less sense practically as kneeling in church is heavily encouraged. Alas, the comfort of wider spaces and available exits in left me free to explore the most unique churches I’ve ever be lucky enough to experience.

The Rock-Cut Churches in the Goreme Valley are one of a kind, and the world agrees. This is actually a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Carved from the tufa itself by Orthodox Christian monks, the churches are adorned with beautiful, colorful frescos. While the rocky architecture is certainly a draw, I was shocked to realize that the frescoes themselves are just as impressive and alluring. Most churches from the Medieval era that you can visit (specifically in Europe) are either white inside from the painting-over during the Protestant Revolution or dark from smoke. But churches were often lavishly decorated in the Middle Ages. I mean, you’ve seen the stained glass windows that so impress. It’s no surprise that the walls may have reflected a similar vibrant artisanship. But they fade, get blackened over by smoke, or are deemed distracting from the word of god. But, in the Goreme Valley, where the sunlight has not entered the churches (except in cases when part of the church has collapsed), the frescoes are as bright as they were a thousand years ago.

The rocks here weren’t just reserved for churches. The towering chunk of tufa below that looks like something used by birds was actually deliberately carved into many tiny chambers and called the Nunnery. At one point, 300 nuns lived within it. People were also buried in rock-carved tombs (right), at meals around tables and benches carved from the stone, and of course, worshipped in the rock-carved churches.

The churches in the valley were carved between 900-1200 AD. Many of the churches are decorated solely with red lines and geometric shapes. Some scholars theorize that the lack of people represented in this red, geometric churches means that the painting dates from the iconoclastic period (when the painting of icons, i.e. visual representations of Jesus and saints, was forbidden), but there are no dates in the churches and historical records seem to indicate that despite the iconoclastic movements, most Orthodox monks remained iconodules (“icon-loving”).

So the predominant scholarship now theorizes that red paint indicates simply that a professional painter had not yet come to finish the church. As most of the red paint follows architectural lines and looks rather hasty and amateurish, it would make sense that is is simply a first sketch. Additionally, in several more colorful and vivid churches, the beautiful frescoes have chipped away in areas and occasionally red paint in visible beneath.

The murals are in remarkable good condition except for the many of the eyes, which have been gouged out by locals who feared the Evil Eye. The Evil Eye is a malevolent gaze, essentially ill will, finding you, and faces in pictures are especially bad luck. To help avert or fend off the evil eye, people will carry glass eye charms, usually blue. Fear of the evil eye is the official explanation, though I heard someone else theorizing that the Muslim locals scratched out the eyes for fear that the figures within where too powerful and could convert them with a single look. In Eastern Orthodoxy, there was a belief that a picture or image of Jesus or a saint embodied a bit of the power of that figure, so this theory also makes sense.

The more colorful frescos are actually painted on a layer of plaster rather than directly onto the tufa.

Part of the tufa has fallen away, revealing the interior of the vast, multileveled church that has been nicknamed the Dark Church. While a shame that a large part of the church is missing, I was grateful to have this nearly complete view of one of carved churches. While the interiors are fascinating, photos are only able to encapsulate cramped spaces, while photos of the exterior show a large mound of rock and it’s impossible to delineate the scale of some of these churches. Some were small and cramped, but some, like the Dark Church, were decidedly not.

We saved the best for last. The oldest rock-cut church in the region is Tokali Church. It was carved in the 900s. It is unique because of it’s age and it’s abundance of well preserved murals and blue paint. Also, for it’s subject matter.

The Tokali frescoes depict numerous scenes of the life of Christ accompanied by depictions of saints, such as Saint John the Baptist, Constantine (the first Christian Emperor), and his mother Helena, who is said to have found the true cross on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Some of the scenes from Jesus’s life are apocryphal (based on apocryphal gospels, i.e. gospels that were often written down around the same time as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John–that is to say 50 to 100 years later–but weren’t accepted by the early church fathers for some reason or another). Some of the apocryphal gospels were popular in Cappadocia, but it’s incredibly rare to find them portrayed at all, let alone within a pictorial lifecycle.

I find the apocryphal gospels incredibly fascinating. Not just the fact that they exist and that some old men got together and decided they shouldn’t be included in the gospel (sometimes because they were repetitive of other stories already represented, sometimes because they depicted a Jesus that didn’t fit with their ideas), but mostly because the apocryphal gospels are almost never talked about outside of academic settings. It’s pretty obvious why:

One, the early church fathers didn’t chose them so they are deemed unimportant. Why would anyone bring them up if they are essentially treated with the disdain of fan-fiction? Two, they often depict a Jesus unlike the one represented in the Bible, so it’s not exactly something priests and preachers and eager to talk about. In the west, the apocryphal gospels are considered quite negative, and treated as if they were deliberately written to mislead us. To find a place and time where these much-hated gospels weren’t only accepted, but venerated is something that I think we need to talk more about from a religious perspective.

After all, many of the tenants in the Latin Christian faith (both Catholic and other denominations) are based on a bunch of people in history just agreeing to understand something vague and philosophic in one certain way. I often feel that each church ought to be explaining to it’s parishioners and congregations why they are accepting each tenant. I know a lot of churches (possibly all?) have a statement of beliefs (example), but I want to know why they chose those beliefs. I want them to show me that they have considered all the angles, all the historically disapproved of choices, and this is exactly why each belief has won out. They should have to go back to the beginning and trace the decisions made throughout history and explain why they are choosing as a church to follow or flout them. For example: “We have decided to teach the New King James version of the bible and no others, including no apocryphal gospels, because we have studied each of them and read the arguments of the early church fathers and we agree that these gospels were written a hundred years after John’s gospel was written down and thus are likely too far down the metaphorical game of Telephone to be trusted.”

I’m not saying I think all churches should teach apocryphal gospels and preach about all the different beliefs that converged during the First Council of Nicaea. I just want them to acknowledge that alternate beliefs and stories exist and tell me why they are choosing this particular one. Just because someone decided that this was the path of Christianity 1700 years ago doesn’t mean those decisions shouldn’t be re-examined.

That some apocryphal gospels were believed as deeply as those in the bible by people in Cappadocia should justify that these ought to be given a second look, and given a place in the conversation even if that place is simply to explain why they are not being included in today’s sermon.

I always, always, just want to know why people believe what they believe.