Guide
The Tokalı Church is the largest rock-cut church in the Göreme area and stands close to the entrance of the open-air site. It is dated to the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh century.
It is made up of four spaces: the single-naved Old Church, the New Church, a lower church and a side chapel. The life of Christ is shown across the walls in order of time, and the painters used lapis lazuli brought from Afghanistan to get the strong blue tones in the frescoes.
The rock the church is cut into is the product of a long stretch of geology. Tectonic movement that began in the late Miocene, as the Afro-Arabian plate drew closer to the Eurasian one, brought heavy volcanic activity to Cappadocia over the last ten million years. Layers of ignimbrite, volcanic ash and lava flows built up over a wide area, and erosion shaped this soft tuff into the fairy chimneys and valleys around Nevşehir. Because the stone is easy to work, the people of the region cut houses, monasteries and churches into it.
The region served as a refuge and a monastic centre for early Christians fleeing Roman pressure. In the fourth century the teaching of Basil of Caesarea hastened the move from the hermit's life to life in community, and places of worship were cut into the tuff.
The art here follows the course of the Byzantine period. During the iconoclast years between 726 and 843 figurative art was forbidden and decoration was held to crosses and geometric motifs. After that, and especially in the churches cut in the tenth and eleventh centuries, rich frescoes depicting scenes from the Gospels make up some of the finest Byzantine painting anywhere.
