A 190-year-old Greek Orthodox church in central Turkey is preparing to reopen its doors, this time as a museum, following the completion of extensive restoration work.
The church of Saint Eustathios in Incesu, Kayseri, was built in 1836 and is one of the area’s most important historic structures. It will house the Incesu Municipal Museum, and local authorities also hope to include it in the wider Cappadocia tourist route.
The Greek inscriptions and frescoes
The church’s architecture and decoration are especially interesting. It is a three-aisled, vaulted building in which frescoes, stone reliefs, sculpted decoration and Karamanlidika inscriptions have survived.
Karamanlidika is Turkish written in Greek characters. It is associated with the Orthodox communities of Asia Minor, who used Turkish as their everyday language while preserving their Orthodox Christian identity.
According to Anadolu, the restoration placed particular emphasis on preserving the building’s authentic features, including the frescoes, the stonework, the inscriptions, the reliefs, and the sculpted elements.
It served as a place of worship until the population exchange
According to the Kayseri Metropolitan Municipality, the restoration work began in 2021 and was completed in 2025.
Tayfun Talaslı, head of the municipality’s Department of Historic Buildings and Museums, stated that Saint Eustathios was used as a place of worship until the Greek-Turkish population exchange of 1923.
After the Orthodox community departed, the building was put to a variety of other uses. Among other things, it served as a military depot, an archive, a theatre hall and a vocational school.
From church to city museum
Work on converting the interior into a museum is more than 80% complete and, according to the local authorities, the building is expected to open to the public soon.
The museum was designed on the basis of archival photographs, historical documents and the oral testimonies of people who lived in the area.
The ground floor will present Incesu’s tangible and intangible cultural heritage. Visitors will be able to learn about the history and architecture of the area, its archaeology, its gastronomy, its agriculture, and its winemaking tradition.
The exhibits will also include ceramics found at the nearby archaeological site of Örenşehir.
Source: sigmalive.com
