AT A GLANCE
Why go?
In the quiet village of Yeşilöz, about ten kilometres southeast of Ürgüp, the rock-carved St. Theodore Church rewards the detour from Cappadocia's crowded viewpoints. Also known locally as the Tağar Church, this Byzantine hall was hewn directly out of the region's soft volcanic tuff and built on a plan so unusual that scholars call it one of a kind in Cappadocia. Instead of the usual cruciform cave-church, it spreads into a trefoil — three leaf-like apses arranged around a square core like the lobes of a clover — and rises with a gallery under its dome that you reach by a ladder, a feature found in no other church here.↗↗↗
Inside, the walls still carry their medieval paintings. The dominant subject is the Deesis — Christ enthroned in blessing between the Virgin and John the Baptist, flanked by the archangels Michael and Gabriel in imperial robes — repeated on a monumental scale in both the main apse and the side chamber, together with gospel scenes of the Annunciation, the Nativity and the Crucifixion, and medallion portraits of apostles, prophets and bishops. Largely free of tour buses, the church lets you study a Cappadocian masterpiece in real silence.
