St. Nicholas Church, Demre: A Byzantine Pilgrimage Church and Museum
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Turkey
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- Byzantine
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page17 sections
History
St. Nicholas Church in Demre, Türkiye, is a Byzantine church associated with Nicholas, the fourth-century bishop of Myra. The present building probably dates from the early sixth century and is linked to the rebuilding of Myra after the earthquake of 529–530 under Emperor Justinian I, the Byzantine ruler who sponsored major reconstruction across the Eastern Roman Empire. Nicholas’s tomb attracted pilgrims after his death, although the beginnings of his veneration remain uncertain. From the sixth century, Myra became a major pilgrimage centre.
Early church and Byzantine rebuilding
An earlier Christian church stood on the site before the present building was erected. One dating tradition places construction around 520, while another connects it more generally with the rebuilding that followed the earthquake of 529–530. The church stood outside Myra’s city walls, along the road leading to the harbour of Andriake. Its position linked the sanctuary to the city and its harbour while placing it within the wider religious landscape of the Byzantine town.
The church was reconstructed in the eighth century, or no later than the period following the Arab attack of 809. The rebuilding preserved the earlier basilical plan, the atrium, and the lower structure of the stepped seating for clergy in the apse, known as the synthronon. During this period, devotion to Nicholas spread beyond the local area and developed in Constantinople. The sanctuary therefore became a centre whose importance extended beyond Myra itself.
Monastery and medieval expansion
A monastery was added and the complex was enlarged later in the eleventh century. The patron of this work is uncertain. It has been attributed either to Johannes Orfanotrofos, a Byzantine imperial official, or to Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos and Empress Zoë Porphyrogenita. A defensive wall measuring 100 metres on each side was built around the sanctuary, incorporating fragments taken from ancient monuments.
In 1087, forty-seven merchants from Bari removed Nicholas’s relics from the church and carried them to Bari, where the Basilica of Saint Nicholas had already been built. Venetian merchants visiting Myra in 1100 claimed to have found the saint’s true remains and placed them in San Nicolò al Lido. These actions divided the physical remains associated with Nicholas among different sanctuaries, but Myra continued to attract pilgrims. The church was expanded under the Komnenian emperors, the Byzantine dynasty that ruled during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Pilgrims continued to seek the miraculous myron, a fragrant or miraculous oil associated with a saint’s relics, while much of the church’s surviving decoration dates from this era.
Burial, flooding, and abandonment
In the second half of the thirteenth century, the Myros River changed course and buried the church beneath several metres of alluvial deposits. Protective walls were built, but annual deposits continued to accumulate. After a prolonged struggle with this changing environment, the settlement of Myra was abandoned. The burial of the church helped preserve parts of its medieval fabric, even as it made the complex vulnerable to later flooding and difficult to maintain.
The church continued to function until the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923. The departure of Demre’s Greek population ended Orthodox worship at Myra, and the former church subsequently became a museum rather than an active place of worship.
Excavation, restoration, and museum use
Charles Texier found three or four Orthodox monks at the site in 1836. The Russian traveller Andrej Muravyev visited the ruins in 1850 and initiated a restoration campaign. Forty-two hectares of land were purchased with Russian funds, and excavation and reconstruction followed between 1853 and 1863 under Auguste Salzmann, who worked at the site from 1858 to 1860. This nineteenth-century intervention added a bell tower and substantially altered the medieval architecture. Because the church remained below street level, it continued to face flooding, and Hans Rott recorded it flooded during his survey in 1902.
Archaeological work resumed in the 1960s under Jürgen Borchardt. A new campaign began in 1988 under Professor S. Yıldız Ötüken of Hacettepe University in Ankara. It exposed the northern part of the monastery complex and small chapels around the nave. In 1982, the church and its surroundings received protection as a first-degree archaeological site.
Religious use has continued in restricted form. The authorities later limited services to an annual ceremony on 6 December by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The service was prohibited in 2002 and resumed in 2007. A Greek Easter service took place there for the first time in 2011, and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow attended a celebration of the translation of Nicholas’s relics. In January 2008, following authorization by Minister Ertuğrul Günay, the building was designated for museum use under the name “Santa Claus Museum.” Representations of Nicholas at the site changed from a bronze statue in 2000 to a plastic Santa Claus in 2005, a fiberglass Turkish fisherman in 2008, and no statue provisionally from 2017.
Remains
St. Nicholas Church preserves an eighth-century basilical core with medieval additions and a nineteenth-century roof. Its main body is a three-aisled, cross-shaped domed basilica with barrel vaults. The central dome is 7.7 metres wide. The complex is arranged around an entrance sequence of atrium, inner entrance hall, and outer entrance hall, with arcades surrounding the outer zone. Inside, the central nave is divided from the side aisles by vaulted galleries, while chapels, burial spaces, wall paintings, and decorated floors record the church’s long religious use.
Entrance spaces and central church
Atrium and entrance halls
The approach to the church passes through an atrium, a narthex, and an exonarthex. The narthex is an entrance hall, while the exonarthex is an outer hall in front of it. Together with the surrounding arcades, these spaces form a substantial entrance zone. The double narthex has cross-vaulted ceilings, preserving the layered arrangement of the church’s approach to the main interior.
Nave and apse
The central nave and side aisles form the church’s principal interior. The central apse contains a restored synthronon, the stepped seating for clergy that includes the bishop’s throne and a lower gallery. The seating has been restored repeatedly. The original roof arrangement included a dome, but deteriorated vaults, domes, and pendentives were replaced during the nineteenth-century restoration by a roof combining a single dome with a cross-vault.
Chapels and monastery areas
The northern part of the church contains a small quadrangular room and two additional small rooms. Further chapels were built around the nave, and excavations exposed additional sections of the monastery complex. One small excavated chapel contains vivid scenes from the life and miracles of St. Nicholas. These spaces show how the complex developed beyond the original basilical core as devotion to the saint expanded.
Burials and the saint’s traditional tomb
Medieval graves and burial chamber
Numerous graves from the eleventh and twelfth centuries occupy the side aisles, ambulatories, and atrium. An eleventh-century burial chamber was attached to the south side of the church and extended eastward into a chapel. Its south wall has two deep niches containing sarcophagi, while grave slabs are embedded in the opposite wall. Another grave is incorporated into the south side of the chapel. The people buried in this chamber are unidentified. Its rich wall paintings and sarcophagi have led to the possibility that they were bishops or abbots, but Nicholas was not buried there.
Courtyard arcosolium
An arcosolium, an arched recess containing a tomb, stands in the courtyard. Dated to 1118, it contains a double grave for a father and son. Its position among the courtyard remains adds another form of medieval burial to the church’s complex arrangement of aisles, chapels, and entrance spaces.
Traditional sarcophagus of St. Nicholas
The original location of Nicholas’s burial place remains uncertain. Following the interpretation of Urs Peschlow, it is usually placed in the eastern bay of the southern aisle. A white-marble sarcophagus between two columns in that aisle, behind a ruined marble screen, is traditionally regarded as the saint’s original sarcophagus. It has relief decoration and vegetal ornament and is now enclosed behind glass.
Paintings, mosaics, and reused stone
Wall paintings
Religious wall paintings decorate the arcades, church walls, chapels, and burial chamber. Many date from the twelfth century. The burial chamber and adjoining chapel contain figures of monks, ascetics, and bishops, together with scenes from the life of Nicholas. A fresco cycle in the northeastern arcade narthex also depicts episodes from his life. The frescoes were restored between 2001 and 2004.
Floors and capitals
Parts of the floors use opus sectile, a technique in which cut pieces of stone or marble create designs, as well as Cosmatesque techniques with geometric mosaic patterns. The capitals are spolia, architectural elements reused from earlier buildings, and were taken from ancient monuments. These floors and capitals combine the church’s medieval decoration with material inherited from the earlier built environment of Myra.
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