C H R I S T I A N I T Y I N T U R K E Y
Christianity
Main Land Turkey is closely related to the spread and history of Christianity. The presence of a large Jewish community at the time has played an important role in that. Many of the most important events in Christian history occurred in Turkey. Travelers can discover many magnificent churches, some nearly as old as Christianity itself, and can retrace the footsteps of Saints Peter and Paul from the Biblical city of Antioch to the underground churches of Cappadocia. Southern city Tarsus is the birth place of Apostle Paul who spread the word of Jesus Christ across Anatolia, expanding Christianity's reach from a predominantly Jewish base to Gentile communities.
Antakya, known as Antioch in biblical times was home to the first Christian community. The city is situated on Turkey's Eastern Mediterranean coast and not far from Tarsus. This ancient city was founded around 300 B.C. and in 42 AD, St. Paul and his followers were first called "Christians" in Antioch which served as base to the spread of Christianity to the world. St. Paul departed from Antioch on his three missionary journeys. The city holds the Church of St. Peter, a cave-church where the apostles Peter and Paul are believed to have preached. In 1963, the Vatican designated the site a place of pilgrimage and recognized it as the world's first cathedral.
The "Seven Churches of Asia Minor," a series of communities located near the Aegean coast, is where St. Paul visited, preached and built the early church. Their ancient names - Ephesus (Efes), Smyrna (Izmir), Thyatira (Akhisar), Sardis (Sart), Philadelphia (Alasehir), Laodicea (Eskihisar) and Pergamon (Bergama) are familiar from the New Testament's Book of Revelation.
Ephesus, perhaps the most prominent of the Seven Churches, is where St. Paul wrote his letters to the Ephesians, and where St. John the Evangelist brought the Virgin Mary to spend her last years. The Vatican recognizes the Virgin Mary's house, located in the hills near Ephesus, as a shrine. Just outside Ephesus, in Selcuk, is the Basilica of St. John where he preached and is believed to be buried.
Many other regions in Turkey offer a wealth of attractions to the Christian traveler. St. Nicholas was born and lived in Demre on the Mediterranean coast. A church dedicated to the original Santa Claus still stands. Visitors to the biblical area of Cappadocia, located in Central Anatolia, can explore more than 200 carved rock churches beautifully decorated with frescoes depicting early Christian motifs, and a seven-story underground city where Christians took refuge from their persecutors.
The stunning Monastery of the Virgin Mary located near the Black Sea in Trabzon is a well-known monastic center dating to the 4th century. Built on the edge of a l200 foot cliff and accessible only by foot, it housed some of the Orthodox Church's greatest thinkers.
Istanbul became the center of Christianity in 330 AD and it was here that the largest church in Christendom at the time, Haghia Sophia or the Church of the Divine Wisdom, was dedicated by Emperor Justinian in 536 AD. The Kariye Museum, a Greek Orthodox Church from the 11th and 14th centuries, is famous for its incomparable Byzantine frescoes and mosaics.
Saint Paul, also called Paul the Apostle, the Apostle Paul or Paul of Tarsus, died c 64-65 was a Hellenistic Jew who called himself the "Apostle to the Gentiles" and was, together with Saint Peter and James the Just, the most notable of early Christian missionaries. According to the Acts of the Apostles, his conversion took place on the road to Damascus.
The twelve Apostles include Peter, the leading Apostle, Andrew, James the Greater, James the Lesser, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, Thaddeus, Simon, and Judas Iscariot. Judas had been one of the Twelve, but he betrayed Jesus and killed himself With Judas gone, Matthias became one of the Twelve.
