Rock Solid Religion

Imagine a small canyon cut into soft volcanic rock by a stream - the land is carpeted by fertile & luxuriant vegetable plots and orchards. Golden Orioles decorate the high poplar trees and cut into the walls of this valley are 60 small Byzantine churches, monasteries and hermit's caves dating from the 11th - 14th centuries. This Christian colony in the Ihlara Valley near Aksaray in Central Anatolia in Turkey was a refuge & paradise created after the start of Roman repression in the early centuries AD. This drawing shows one of those Byzantine churches chiselled out of the solid rock.