Yusuf Koc Church

In the Goreme Open Air Museum near the village of Avcılar (Maçan), there is a monastery linked with the church known as Yusuf Koç Church. The rooms of this monastery are grouped around the edges of a large cone and may extend into two more cones to the south. The cavities in this monastery are all carefully cut rooms with flat ceilings and have no decoration (Rodley 1984, 151).

Thierry attributes the church to the mid-eleventh century, on grounds of style, iconography, epigraphy and programme (Thierry 1974, 198). For the same reason, a date in the first half of the eleventh century is proposed for the monastery as a whole. However, it may be slightly earlier than the Göreme development (Rodley 1984, 183).

Yusuf Koç Church lies on the west side of the cone. It is fronted by a recessed façade decorated with three horseshoe-arched blind niches, of which only traces remain. The rock at the front of the church has been eroded considerably so that the entrance today is about two meters above the present ground level. An arcosolium is cut into the rock at the right of the entrance.

The church has an irregular form whereby a doubled inscribed-cross plan with two domes at the center is surrounded by ten bays (figure 42). Its six cross-arms are barrel vaulted and the corner bays have flat ceilings (figure 43). The arches of the twin center bays spring from the walls. Apses open from each of the two eastern bays opposite the domes; but combine to form a single irregular recess. Today, the columns are not extant except for their bases and capitals (figure 44). There are no chancel screens, however the apse walls are damaged and there may originally have been low slabs. A horseshoe-arched blind niche is cut in the east wall of the northeast bay but the walls are otherwise undecorated.

The church has a fully decorated programme22 that has been described by Rodley. The Deesis and the Virgin and child are seen on the south and north apse, respectively. Bishop saints Gregory the Theologian, Basil, John Chrysostom are represented on the wall of the northern apse. The four Archangels (two in each dome) are seen on the domes. Luke and Matthew (east vault), Peter and Paul (lunette), Mark and Andrew, John, Simon and Bartholomew (west vault) are represented on the barrel vaults and lunettes. Mishael (one of the three Hebrews), deacon, male saint and Prokopios with the donor is placed on the walls, reading left to right. On the west wall, the representations of Constantine and Helena have survived with the military saints (Rodley 1984, 193-206). Thus, the programme consists of apostles in the vaults of south part of the church, martyrs in the barrel vaults of the north part, a number of military saints in the northwest corner bay. The only narrative image on the north wall is the Annunciation, and the three Hebrews the only Old Testament subject (Rodley 1984, 156).

Yusuf Koc Church Cappadocia Turkey

The decoration programme of the church also includes three donor figures. The first one is in the Annunciation panel, above the head of the small male figure. It is inscribed with ‘Entreaty of the servant…’ The second one is in the Prokopios panel. Again, there is a small figure to the left of the saint kneels and grips the saint’s foot. And the last figure stands in the Demetrios panel. Here, the name of 22 For the new approaches about the painting programme of Yusuf Koç Church see Lévy (1998, 913-917). the donor is inscribed: ‘Entreaty of the servant of God, Theodoros’ (Rodley 1984, 156).