From Cave to Monastery: The Founding in 386 AD
Sümela Monastery's story begins in 386 AD, during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius I. According to tradition, two Athenian monks, Barnabas and Sophronius, were led to a cave high on the cliffs of Karadağ ("Black Mountain") above the Altındere valley by an icon of the Virgin Mary believed to have been painted by the Apostle Luke. The full account of the icon and the vision that guided the monks is told on our legend page. The monastery's very name — Sümela — is thought to derive from the Greek word Melas ("black"), a reference to the mountain itself.
What began as a cave shrine grew, over the following centuries, into a sprawling multi-storey complex built directly into the rock face — one of the most architecturally daring religious sites of the Byzantine world. Sites of comparable Byzantine and Orthodox significance, such as Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, help illustrate just how central such cliff and cave monasteries were to the spread of Orthodox Christianity across Anatolia and the Black Sea coast.
Growth Under the Empire of Trebizond
Sümela's golden age arrived with the rise of the Empire of Trebizond, ruled by the Komnenos dynasty from 1204 to 1461 following the collapse of Constantinople to the Fourth Crusade. Trapezuntine emperors, most notably Alexios III (r. 1349–1390), lavished patronage on the monastery, funding new construction, donations of land, and — most importantly for today's visitors — the majority of the surviving fresco cycles that cover the Rock Church. During this period Sümela became one of the wealthiest and most influential monastic institutions on the Black Sea coast, attracting pilgrims, monks, and imperial visitors from across the region.
Ottoman Protection After 1461
When the Ottomans conquered Trebizond in 1461, ending the last Byzantine successor state, Sümela did not fall into ruin as many feared. Ottoman sultans issued a series of firmans (imperial decrees) explicitly protecting the monastery's property, its monks, and its right to operate. This unusual continuity meant Sümela functioned as an active Greek Orthodox monastery for nearly five more centuries under Ottoman rule, continuing to receive gifts, manuscripts, and visiting clergy well into the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The 1923 Population Exchange and Abandonment
Sümela's continuous religious life came to an abrupt end in 1923. Under the terms of the Greek–Turkish population exchange that followed the Turkish War of Independence, the Greek Orthodox communities of the Black Sea region, including the monks of Sümela, departed for Greece. Before leaving, the community carried away the monastery's most sacred possessions, including the icon of the Virgin Mary attributed to Luke and other relics. These now reside at the new Panagia Soumela monastery, built near Veria in Macedonia, Greece, which remains a major pilgrimage site to this day.
Left empty, Sümela's buildings suffered decades of neglect, weathering, and — most damagingly to its famous frescoes — graffiti and vandalism from visitors before formal protection measures were put in place.
Restoration and Reopening
Recognizing its enormous cultural and touristic value, Turkish authorities launched a major restoration campaign at Sümela beginning around 2015, focused on stabilizing the cliffside structures, repairing the aqueduct and building facades, and conserving what remained of the frescoes. The site reopened to the public in stages between 2019 and 2020, and some conservation work on individual chapels or fresco sections may still be ongoing today. For a closer look at how the complex was engineered into the cliff in the first place, see our page on how Sümela Monastery was built, and for a room-by-room walkthrough of what survives, visit our inside the monastery guide.
A Timeline at a Glance
| Period | Event |
|---|---|
| 386 AD | Founded under Emperor Theodosius I |
| 1204–1461 | Golden age under the Empire of Trebizond (Komnenos dynasty) |
| 1461 | Ottoman conquest of Trebizond; monastery protected by firman |
| 1461–1923 | Continuous operation as an active monastery under Ottoman rule |
| 1923 | Abandoned during the Greek–Turkish population exchange |
| ~2015–2019 | Major restoration campaign |
| 2019–2020 | Progressive reopening to visitors |
Few sites anywhere combine such a dramatic physical setting with such an unbroken historical record — nearly 1,650 years from founding to the present day.
Sümela's Place in Byzantine and Orthodox History
Sümela is best understood as part of a broader tradition of Byzantine monastic architecture that stretched from Constantinople to the furthest edges of the empire. Just as the great cathedral of Hagia Sophia anchored the spiritual and political life of the imperial capital, remote cliff monasteries like Sümela extended Orthodox Christian practice into mountainous frontier regions, often becoming centers of learning, manuscript production, and pilgrimage in their own right. Sümela's library, scriptorium, and centuries of donated manuscripts placed it firmly within this wider network of Byzantine religious and intellectual life, even as it remained physically isolated on its cliff above the Altındere valley.
Visiting the Historical Sumela Monastery Today
Modern visitors walk through a site that layers nearly seventeen centuries of history in a single visit. The cave that housed the founding icon, the frescoed walls added during the Trebizond golden age, the Ottoman-era firmans that protected the site, and the 2015–2019 restoration are all visible in different corners of the complex. For a room-by-room look at what survives today, see our inside the monastery guide, and for the specific engineering challenges builders faced constructing a monastery on a vertical cliff, visit how Sümela Monastery was built.