I knew from the faded frescoes on the walls and ceiling where I was though I didn’t know its name, if indeed it had one.

It was perhaps the most emotional experience of my trip to Turkey. I was wandering through the Rose Valley and choosing caves at random to explore. People had been living in some of the caves for centuries; there are some very elaborate habitations carved into the cliffs and mounds of Cappadocia.

I was choosing holes in the rock at random to cautiously explore. Much as I wanted to go to the upper levels of some of the dwellings I played it safe, not wanting to take a risk while alone (if sticking your head into an unknown cave isn’t enough of a risk. Try that in Canada and you could come face to face with a bear). Having taken in the Goreme Open Air museum in the morning, when I stuck my head into this particular cave I knew immediately what use it had been put to: It was a church.

It wasn’t a big church, but most of the ones in the region aren’t. As I understand it they were frequently the creation of one devout person, perhaps more for personal than corporate worship. I don’t know how many churches there are in the region. Hundreds at least, maybe thousands, so many that ones like the one I “discovered” into aren’t in any tourist guide, their names forgotten in the depths of time.

There have been Christians in Cappadocia since before the followers of Jesus were called Christians. Turkey may be 96-98 per cent Muslim today, but it wasn’t always that way. There was a thriving church here that started shortly after Pentecost and flourished for centuries. The cave church I stumbled upon was, judging from what I had learned at the museum, about a thousand years old.

I was very much aware of that as I looked around the small cave. I had a definite sense that I was indeed on holy ground. Whoever painted those frescoes has been dead for 900 years or so, but their act of devotion remains today, accessible to anyone who sticks their head into this cave.

These are very simple pieces of art, not the elaborate paintings of Biblical scenes found in the Buckle Church or the Dark Church. It was that simplicity that touched me I think. I felt a real sense of presence, that “communion of the saints” across the many generations. Worship styles may have changed and church architecture is different, but the Church remains today. Somehow I felt an emotional connection to the past, and a sense of hope for the future.