Sumela Monastery - Turkey by brewgirlca
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Description
This is the Sumela Monastery in a remote rugged mountainous region of northeastern Turkey. The area is cold and wet due to its proximity to the Black Sea; it is a unique area of Turkey. I was totally unprepared for the site of dense dark shady forests composed of towering spruce trees with immense branches, each branch extending over 10s of square meters. The area had a beautiful primeval feel.
Sumela Monastery is of Greek Orthodox origin founded in 386 A.D. by two priests during the reign of the Emperor Theodosius I. It subsequently fell into ruin and was restored several times during the middle ages but reached its present form in the 13th century during the reign of Alexios III. Alexios granted the monastery an annual stipend which helped maintain its structure and function.
Many westerners think when the Ottomans conquered Turkey that they totally destroyed the pre-existing Christian cultures. This is not in fact the case. In this remote part of the world Ottoman traders had lived rather peacefully with the local Greek population before the military conquest. When the capital of the region, Trabzon, finally fell to the Ottomans in 1461, the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II granted his protection to the monastery. It served as a sanctuary for monks and travelers for several more centuries.
The Monastery is utterly remote, reached by a few hour's drive on a narrow, twisty mountain road. You pray you don't meet someone coming the other way! Pullouts are rare, and Turkish drivers are rather unforgiving of giving up road space and fearless of pushing their tires to the edge of the abyss! Guardrails do not exist in Turkey.
Still our journey had to be far easier than when mules, horses and walking were the only means of travel. While the monastery itself would offer safe haven for ancient travelers, they would face days or weeks of long expedition through a landscape occupied pretty much only by hostile tribesmen, intent on robbery or worse. By contrast, our only risk was being driven off a cliff face! As you shall see next, we got a small taste of what these hardy travelers went through, For even today, reaching the base of the site is far from the end of the journey; it is merely the end of the road!
Comments (31)
KarmaSong
An impressive view of this monastery and a narrative that echoes the recent holiday I spent in Turkey, but in the Western part of the country, far more familiar to travel agencies and tourists than the eastern part, as you already surely know! I didn't expect Turkey to be so rich, historically speaking, and was amazed by the apparent good or rather good conditions of historical and archeological sites. The pov you've chosen for this superb capture points to the beauty and spiritual atmosphere of the place.