Sumela Monastery

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Sumela Monastery as seen from the road to the monastery

The Sumela Monastery ( Turkish Sümela (Meryem Ana) Manastırı , Greek Παναγία Σουμελά Panagía Soumelá , German 'Mother of God of Sumela' ) is a former Greek Orthodox monastery from Byzantine times in northeastern Turkey in Maçka ( Trabzon Province ). The name comes from the Greek melas (black), after the Greek name of the mountain on whose rock face the monastery was built.

location

The monastery is located 45 km south of Trabzon in the Altındere National Park in the Zigana Mountains ( Eastern Pontic Mountains ) at an altitude of 1071  m . It is carved and built into the rock about 270 m above a gorge of the Altındere (in ancient times: Pyxites ). From 1628 to 1902 it housed the premises of the Phrontisterion , an important Pontic Greek educational institution.

history

Construction work on the monastery

According to legend, the icon , which is said to have been painted by the Evangelist Luke himself, was carried after his death by two angels through the clouds into a cave in the - then - Pontic Mountains. Two young hermits from Athens, Barnabas and his nephew Sophronios, were also invited by the angels to take part in the journey and discovered the icon in a cave in the middle of the forest near waterfalls. That was probably in the year 385 and the cave, like so many, was already inhabited by early Christian hermits . The cave was enlarged and a chapel was built into it.

Around 500, Emperor Anastasios sponsored the construction of a monastery. In 640 it was destroyed by fire. The monk Christophoros from the Vazelon monastery rebuilt it. It was destroyed again in the 12th century, allegedly by robbers looking for the icon. The icon was recovered unscathed from the river.

The oldest surviving buildings date from the Comnen period . Here was Alexios III. (1338–1390) on May 21, 1350 and his son Manuel III (1390–1417) crowned Emperor of Trebizond . Even after the conquest by the Ottomans in 1461, the monastery remained and developed into an important place of pilgrimage .

The monastery got its current appearance in the 19th century when buildings with monk cells were built in front of the actual rock church. When, after the First World War, the Greek population on the Pontos was defeated by Ataturk's troops in an attempt to found their own republic , the monks also had to leave the monastery in 1926 (→ Greek-Turkish population exchange ). The relics were hidden in a nearby chapel and could be brought to Greece in 1930 on the intervention of the Turkish Prime Minister Ismet Inönü . Today they are in the new establishment of the same name in the Greek Kastania / Veria Macedonia from 1951.

After a devastating fire in 1930, the monastery continued to deteriorate until it was placed under protection by the Turkish government as a national heritage in 1972 and made accessible to visitors.

Religious meaning

The monastery is an important place of pilgrimage for Christians. It is dedicated to the "Panhaghia tou Melas" (All Saints of the Black Mountain), the mother of Jesus Christ , for the Muslims the mother of the prophet Isa , by whom it is also called "Meryem ana manastiri" (Mother Mary Monastery).

The relics in the monastery included the above. Icon that is said to have been painted by the Evangelist Luke and a splinter of the cross on which Jesus died. With this cross relic , the water from the holy well was consecrated monthly, which the pilgrims used against all conceivable ailments.

In 2005 it became known that Sumela, "one of the most important monasteries in Christendom", was to be reopened as a monastery, according to Turkish authorities. In 2010 the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I applied to the Turkish government to preside over a divine liturgy there on the Dormition on August 15th. The application was approved by the AKP government on June 8th by the then Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his then Minister of Culture and Tourism Ertugrul Günay and the liturgy was carried out on August 15th with great sympathy from Orthodox Christians. On August 15, 2015, the sixth Christian Orthodox pilgrimage in a row since 2010 took place. This focused on the peace message of the ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomeos I and his call to end the bloodshed between the PKK and Turkey.

building

A long, narrow staircase leads to the entrance of the monastery, which is flanked by guard houses. Another staircase leads to the inner courtyard.

The most important parts are the rock church , some chapels, study rooms, a guest house, library and the holy well. An aqueduct built on the rock wall supplies the monastery with water and has since been restored.

The library is on the right-hand side in front of the cave church. Sixty-six of the manuscripts, mostly dating from the 17th and 18th centuries, have been cataloged and are now in the Ankara Museum . Another 1000 Tetra Gospels ( The Four Gospels ) from the Byzantine period, decorated with miniatures, are in the Hagia Sophia Museum in Istanbul. Of the other treasures of the monastery there is a silver cross relic of Manuel III, a handwritten manuscript and a large number of documents in the Museum of Byzantine Art in Athens , an icon of the monastery "Lady of the roses" is now in the National Gallery in Dublin . Other is privately owned and in the Benaki Museum in Athens.

The Turkish influence can be seen in the design of the cabinets, niches and chimneys in the buildings around the courtyard.

Frescoes

Fresco in the monastery

The inner and outer walls of the rock church and the adjoining chapel are decorated with frescoes . The depictions on the inside of the wall facing the courtyard of the Felsenkirche date from the time of Alexios III. The portraits of Alexios and Manuel have not survived. The exterior frescoes are from the early 18th century and depict scenes from the Old and New Testaments and the Council of Nikaia-Nicaea .

Parts of a large depiction of the Apocalypse were saved. A dragon and two saints on horseback ( Georgios and Demetrios ) are painted on the wall of a small chapel. Three more layers were discovered under the visible layer of paint. The figure of a ruler with a diadem was found on the upper edge of the bottom layer, a similar figure was painted over it and a metamorphosis - the change in Christ's gaze on Mount Tabor . 100 m north of the monastery are chapels, which were also carved into the mountain and are decorated with frescoes.

The Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism has been restoring the monastery since 1998, the frescoes are being cleaned and restored, and the main building has been given a new roof.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Superior Conference of Male Religious Congregations in Austria: Reports - September 2005 . September 8, 2005 ( PDF , 14 KB).
  2. ↑ Article: "Turkey: Christians May Celebrate Church Service in Sumela Monastery" from June 25, 2010 on medals accessed online on {{{5}}}
  3. ↑ Orthodox Christians celebrate mass in Sümela monastery: "A historic moment for Greeks and Turks" ( Memento from August 15, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), tagesschau.de, message from August 15, 2010
  4. ↑ "Orthodox Christians celebrate mass in Sümela - praying for better days" ( Memento from August 17, 2010 in the Internet Archive ). ARD / SWR, August 15, 2010.
  5. ↑ Bartholomeostan Sümela çağrısı: Kan dökülmemesi en büyük dileğimizdir Hürriyet, August 15, 2015, accessed on August 16, 2015

Coordinates: 40 ° 41 ′ 24 ″  N , 39 ° 39 ′ 30 ″  E

Web links

Commons : Sumela  - collection of images, videos and audio files

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