Cappadocia I

I’m not sure if the following photos are entirely legal. I couldn’t figure out if the red line on the camera sign meant don’t take photos with flash or don’t take photos at all. But these are too pretty, and I guess Jesus would forgive.

Inside of a cave church (Karanlık Kilise – Dark Church) in Cappadocia.

I could swear that either Çağla or Emrah went back in time and drew the guy in the circle on the right.

Or Gabriel here.

I thought of their paintings/drawings a lot while I was taking these photos. And I immediately got that “I wish they were here right now” feeling, which I often get when I think of them.

Before entering the Dark Church, we saw the Snake Church which had a fantastic fresco depicting Onuphrius.

Half woman, half bearded old man; we were told a couple of times that Onuphrius was once a beautiful woman who hated all the men’s attention so she prayed really hard to look like a man and she got what she wanted…  partially. I found this quite interesting (and a bit sad because “attention” probably meant rape) but I googled it and couldn’t find any such story about Onuphrius. Although, if it’s true, he really should be the patron saint of transsexuals.

I also did the whole jesus peace sign thing (like in the first photo) inside one of these churches and made my sister take a photo of it – which was supposed to be hilaaaaarious. But the camera totally betrayed me and I looked like the living dead (yet another proof that God is great…) So yes,  that photo went to photo hell. Purgatory at best.