Throughout Anatolia there are many ancient churches either in caves or carved into the rock of a mountain. Archeologists point out that the Phrygian Kybele had many of her places of worship carved into the mountains. This custom is a carry-over from the time in which the Great Mother Goddess of Anatolia or one of her evolutionary types, of the Kybele-Kubaba class, had shrines in such locations. As the great biblical archeologist of the 19th and early 20th century, William Ramsay pointed out, pagan monasteries were located very close to the peaks of mountains for according to the classical belief-system, this location was the closest to the heavens, where the Gods and Goddesses were supposed to be. Prayers said in this environment had a short distance to travel to be fulfilled. Upon the advent of Christianity in Anatolia certain classical concepts were retained such as the location of heaven Pagan places of worship were easily converted into Christian ones by the sprinkling of holy water and the saying of prayers. When thinking of a lofty location for the setting of a monastery, Sumela Monastery at 1200 meters above sea level comes to mind. This monastery surrounding a cave church clings to a cliff. Resting precariously on a rocky ledge around 300 meters above a rockbound torrent, this striking monastic complex is 54 km. from the city of Trabzon on the Black Sea coastline.
According to an ancient tradition, Sumela Monastery was established around 386 A.D. by two monks, Barnabas and Sophronius. Barnabas is believed to have had a dream of the Virgin Mary in which she instructed him to seek a cave on a narrow ledge situated on a palisade on the Black Sea and establish a monastery in her honor. He and his companion were guided by a famous icon reputed to have been painted by St. Luke, to a cave situated near a spring high up on the Zigana Mountains. The monastic settlement was known as "Our Lady of the Black Mountain". It has been a place of pilgrimage since very early times and it was honored by the Emperor Justinian who had the relics of St. Barnabas deposited in a silver reliquary there. The principal church of the monastery dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary was partially hewn out of the rock with the other part being a cave.