Sümela Monastery

Sacred SitesTrabzon, Türkiye

August·Peaking now

Jun–Sep

Full daylight, every path open and the greenest forest of the year — and the cloud show at its height: humid Black Sea air condenses on the cliff and swallows then hands the monastery back several times in an afternoon.

Year-round The cliff, the cave Rock Church and its layered frescoes stand here every day; what changes is the cloud, the autumn colour, the winter snow and how much the weather lets you climb.

Sümela is a Greek Orthodox monastery welded to a cliff 300 metres above the floor of the Altındere valley, with only forest and air beneath its balconies. Its name comes from the Greek melas, black — after the mountain that holds it, Karadağ, whose Turkish name means the same. Tradition credits two monks from Athens, Barnabas and Sophronios, who founded it around AD 386 after finding an icon of the Virgin in a cave here. Its real patron came a thousand years later: Alexios III of Trebizond, whose 1365 decree gave it revenues, tax exemption and imperial protection. The Ottomans took Trebizond in 1461 and renewed those privileges rather than revoke them; the cave shrine grew into a warren of chapels, cells, a kitchen and a library stacked against the rock. The last stretch is on foot, up a steep cobbled stair through spruce and chestnut forest. This is one of the wettest corners of Türkiye: damp air off the Black Sea condenses against the cliff, and the building can vanish into cloud within minutes. At its centre is the Rock Church, a cave painted inside and out, its frescoes lying in layers from three periods. Look at the lower saints: many have had their eyes scratched out, and names are scrawled across the paint. Abandoned in 1923 in the Greek-Turkish population exchange, the monastery lost its wooden floors to a fire in 1930 and stood unguarded for decades; restorers now lift the graffiti in colours close to the originals. Rockfalls closed the site in 2015; engineers pinned the cliff above with steel cable and mesh, and it reopened in full on 1 July 2021, drawing half a million visitors in 2025. An Orthodox liturgy has been held here since 2010, though for three years running permission has come for late August, not the 15th — the feast day itself.

Worth knowing

Good to know

A shuttle takes you up the valley, but the last climb is yours — a steep cobbled stair finishes the job, so keep proper shoes on and leave the heavy bag in the car.
Cloud thickens as the day warms — mornings usually give the clearest look at the full facade, while by afternoon the mist can close in and hide the monastery altogether.
The cliff only reads from across the gorge — standing in the courtyard you cannot see the rock you are perched on; the far side of the valley gives you the whole 300-metre wall at once.
Wet stone is the real hazard — this is one of the rainiest valleys in the country, and the cobbles and stairs stay slick long after the rain has stopped.
The Orthodox liturgy is no longer a fixed date — it needs a pass from the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and for three years running permission has been given for late August, not the 15th.

Things to do

1
Read the cave church painted inside and out
The Rock Church is a cave whose walls carry frescoes on both faces — the courtyard side as well as the interior — with layers from three different periods lying one on top of another. Look for the scenes high up, which survive in good condition because nobody could reach them to damage them: apostles, angels, and Saint Ignatius torn apart by lions in a Roman arena.
2
Climb the cobbled stair through the spruce
The shuttle stops in the valley and the rest is a steep walk up stone steps through spruce and chestnut forest. The monastery keeps appearing between the trunks and disappearing again, and the wall above you grows until it fills the whole sky.
3
See the full cliff from across the gorge
From inside the courtyard you cannot see the rock you are standing on. Cross to the far side of the valley and the monastery finally makes sense: a row of pale buildings pasted onto 300 metres of dark stone, held up by nothing you can see.
4
Look out from the monks' cells
Wander the rooms cut into the rock — cells, kitchen, library — and stop at the window openings. The view down the wooded valley is the one the monks had every morning for centuries, and it has barely changed.
5
Wait for the cloud to erase the monastery
Stay put on a humid afternoon and watch the valley fill with cloud from below. The mist climbs the cliff until the buildings fade to outlines and then disappear altogether, and a few minutes later it thins again and they are back.