A Weird Stone Church in Cappadocia

Hello again! after a 3-week "mini" absence here I am, back with more photos of my Cappadocian adventure. As many of you might know, Cappadocia is a region blessed with some of the most alien geography on Earth, all the more so because of its historical heritage. You can't trek more than a mile without running into some old Christian church or underground city, literally carved inside molten-looking pinnacles of rock.

There are many such underground churches, and the internet is replete with tourist photos of what's inside. I won't bore you again with pictures you can see everywhere. Instead, I want to show you only the weirdest stone "church" in the region, a bizarre edifice I nicknamed the "Church of St. Ska."

You can see why this place earned such a nickname. The entire ceiling was covered in a bizarre, reddish checkerboard pattern.

I did not see any markers or signs showing the original name of the church, assuming it had one. I wonder how old it was? Christians were still present in the region until 1923, so it might date to around then. Alternatively, it might be an older, pre-Ottoman structure, (something left over from the period of iconoclasm?) or conversely, something more recent painted by bored villagers.

Then again, was this place ever a real church? Something tells me this is more a work of Anatolian folk art rather than a place of Christian worship. Of course, like most things in Turkish history, you never know...