Aya Elenia, also called the church of the Archangel Michael, is a Byzantine church in Sille, a quarter of Konya, and the inscription over its door carries the claim that gives the building its reputation: that it was built in 327 by Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine, during her journey to Jerusalem, and repaired under Mahmud II and Abdülmecid. It is known as one of the first churches in Anatolia, and the municipality goes further, citing the Turkologist Ali Canip Olgunlu's book 'Karadaki Yelkenli Ayasofya' for the claim that, having stood without interruption since 327, it is the oldest surviving church in the world.
Sille itself has held many civilisations across five thousand years, and the quarter carries traces of the Roman, Byzantine, Anatolian Seljuk, Karamanid and Ottoman periods.
The plan is a closed Greek cross on four free-standing supports, with a narthex at the west end and stairs leading up to the galleries.
What is worth the visit, beyond the architecture, is the woodwork: the iconostasis, the ambo, the bishop's throne and the ciborium. The walls are richly frescoed, and inside is a repair inscription dated 1833, written in Turkish in Greek letters, which records part of the building's history.
One later chapter is easy to miss: during the First World War the building served as Türkiye's first orthopaedic hospital. Its historic Christian congregation came to an end with the killings of Greeks and the population exchange.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Konya as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from -0.1 °C in January to 23.6 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, July, August and September; rainfall is heaviest in May (43 mm) and lightest in August (6 mm). Long-term means for 1927-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
