Sümela Monastery is a Greek Orthodox monastery dramatically placed on a cliff face high above a valley in the Pontic Mountains near Trabzon, on Turkey's Black Sea coast. According to tradition, it was founded by two monks, Barnabas and Sophronios, who were guided by an icon of the Virgin Mary attributed to Saint Luke. The monastery flourished under the patronage of the Byzantine and Trebizond emperors, who gave it lands and privileges. Its rock-cut chapel and nearby buildings are covered with frescoes, most of them painted in later centuries. It was abandoned in the 1920s, when the Greek Orthodox population of the area left in the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, and is now a museum and tourist site.
Before and after
- from 375 CE to 568 CEMigration Period
- 9 August 378 CEThe Goths destroy a Roman army at Adrianople
- 27 February 380 CEChristianity becomes the state religion of Rome
- 381 CEFirst Council of Constantinople
- 386 CEOrigins of Sümela Monastery
- 386 CEConstruction of Basilica of Saint Paul outside the Walls
- from 386 CE to 535 CENorthern Wei
- from 5 September 394 CE to 6 September 394 CEBattle of the Frigidus
- 17 January 395 CEThe Roman Empire is permanently divided
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- 200 BCEOrigins of Nazca Lines
- 19 BCEConstruction of Western Wall
The era
This moment belongs to the Ancient civilizations (3,200 BCE to 500 CE), writing, cities and empires. You can also browse everything in the 4th century.