Photos of the Medieval Selime Cave Cathedral Cappadocia

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Photos of the Amazing Medieval Selime Cave Cathedral Cappadocia. Byzantine Roman cave churchesPhotos by photographer Paul E Williams.  (TIP – use the icons below the slideshow for thumbnail photos and info)

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Photos of the Amazing Medieval Selime Cave Cathedral Cappadocia.

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Photos of Cave Selime Cathedral ( Selime Monastery or Selime Castle), Cappadocia Turkey.

Building Cave Monasteries

Cappadoccia is a high plateau in central Anatolian Turkey. It is covered with soft volcanic tuffa rock hundreds of meters thick. In the absence of high mountains to build defensive fortifications on, the people of Cappadocia went underground. There are underground cities in Cappadocia that housed thousand of people. They were easy to defend with narrow entrances and narrow tunnels and were cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

Selime Cathedral

Selime Cathedral is the biggest rock cathedral in Cappadocia. The site at Selime has been used through history by the Hittites, Persians, Romans, Byzantines, and the Ottomans. Originally used as a castle it was converted to a Monastery.

Selime monastery has a big rock cathedral with a central aisle and two aisles either side with two rows of rock columns. Frescoes, now very badly damaged date from the 9th century or beginning of the 10th century A.D.

The huge size of the church and the monastery itself shows the significance of the monastery. Selime monastery also contains cave rooms cut into the rock that were the quarters for monks. There are two halls, a stable for mules, and a large kitchen. Because the kitchen was built in the rock with no windows lamps were used as a lighting source. Its high pyramid shaped roof carried smoke from the fires upwards and out through a flu.

Most of the rooms fronts of Selime Cathedral complex are now open due to rock slides or earthquakes. The size of Selime Cathedral complex gives some idea of the importance Cappadocia had in early and middle Christian eras.