Photos of the Medieval Cappadocia Zelve Cave Monastery

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Photos of the Medieval Cappadocia Zelve Cave Monastery, Anatolia Turkey. Photos by photographer Paul E Williams.  (TIP – use the icons below the slideshow for thumbnail photos and info)

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Photos of the Medieval Cappadocia Zelve Cave Monastery, Anatolia Turkey.

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Photos of Zelve Cave Monastery complex, 7th century, Goreme National Park, Cappadocia, Nevsehir, Turkey. A UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Early Christian Centre

Cappadocia was home to Christians since St Paul visited the region to preach the Gospels in the 1st century AD. The most famous Christians of the area were the 4th century Cappadocian Fathers who were Saint Basil, his younger brother Gregory of Nyssa & Gregory of Nazianzus. All were important religious leaders of the Orthodox church.

Zelve monastery complex

Zelve monastery complex is a series of interconnected cave churches and room that are cut into the soft volcanic rocks of a remote valley in the Goreme National Park. The landscape is typical of this part of Cappadoccia with pillar rock fairy chimney rock formations.

Iconoclastic Religious Decorations

Zelve if typical of the Cappadocian monasteries of the iconoclastic period (725-842). During this period the Byzantine Empire banned all figurative religious depictions of religious characters. The frescoes that decorate its churches are kept a strict minimum, usually a simple sculpted or tempera painted cross. The ban on depicting religious images at the time Zelve was founded prohibited anything more than simple geometric patterns. There are depictions of Christ Pantocrator in the apse of one of the churches, but this comes from a later period when the ban on depiction of religious characters had been lifted.

A Cave Refuge

The Zelve valley was a monastic refuge between the 9th and 13th centuries for Christians during the Persian and Arab invasions. The cave houses at Zelve were inhabited until 1952, when the last inhabitants moved to the new town Yeni Zelve 2 km away. Today Zelve is an an open-air museum.