The Orthodox monastery of Sumela, in Turkey, records a new record number of visitors. According to official information from the Trabzon region, more than 400,000 visitors have already been recorded in the first nine months of this year.
The first new Christian church opened in Turkey since the founding of the republic in 1923. Attending the ceremony at St. Ephrem’s Syrian Orthodox Church in…
In the same period last year there were almost 290 thousand. The monastery in northeastern Turkey was founded in 386 and was the most important pilgrimage site on the Black Sea for many centuries, mainly because of an icon of Mary attributed to the evangelist Luke, which the faithful venerated there.
After the end of the short-lived Pontic Republic, all Greek and Armenian Christians in Pontus had to leave the country in 1923, including the monks of Sumela. The monastery remained in ruins for decades until it was declared a national monument by the Ankara government in 1972. The Sumela Monastery has been fully open to visitors since May 2022 – after being closed due to restoration work in 2015.
Patriarch Bartholomew I
Location of several imperial coronations
The traditional Orthodox Marian devotion at the monastery, which is celebrated every year on August 15th, is of great religious importance. It is usually headed by Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. Believers from all over the world come to Sumela for this celebration, which has great symbolic significance for the identity and presence of Orthodox Christianity in Turkey.
The oldest surviving buildings in the monastery date from the time of the Komnenes, who ruled as Emperor of Trebizond from 1204. Several imperial coronations took place in Sumela. Even after the Ottoman conquest in 1461, the monastery remained a Christian spiritual and cultural center, which was also supported by the sultans through large donations. In the 19th century, the monastery was expanded again, attracting Christian and Muslim pilgrims from all over Asia Minor, but also from Russia and the Caucasus.
(kap – sk)