Pancarlık Church
Lovely remote monastic settlement
There are so many rock-hewn churches in Cappadocia – one estimate stands at 3,000 – that it is almost obligatory to name a favourite; beyond the obvious candidates at places like Göreme’s famous Open Air Museum (the frescoes exceptional, the crowds excessive), this is mine.
A road signposted off the Ürgüp–Mustafapaşa road leads after a couple of miles to this remote church, though a more rewarding approach is on foot up the Balkan Valley. A rock-hewn gateway leads to a courtyard which the church lies beyond. This is an interior of utter simplicity, with a flat ceiling and a rounded apse containing a stone-carved altar. The frescoes – rusty red and bean green – are particularly well preserved on the ceiling; in all their rich devotional detail they are a joy to contemplate.
What particularly distinguishes this luminous interior are the vestigial signs of a reborn reverence – the vase of flowers on the altar, the carpets on the stepped benches, the rickety chair – which are uniformly absent in the museumised atmosphere of many Cappadocian churches. These tiny touches are beguiling; they may even amount to an audacious acknowledgement that the spirit of such places endures long after their congregations have been expelled.
Local caretaker Mehmet is usually on hand to take the modest entrance fee and to offer tea.
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