The monastery whose Greek name, Pateriça, is rendered in Turkish as Ayışığı — moonlight — stands on the northern arm of Cunda, also called Alibey island, in the Ayvalık district of Balıkesir. It is thought to have been built in the eighteenth century.
A wall runs around the complex, and the church sits in the courtyard inside: domed, rectangular in plan and oriented east, with a doorway built of the local sarımsak stone. That stone is itself the evidence for the building's later history — the way it is used indicates that the church was repaired at various times and was pulled down and rebuilt in the 1850s.
Getting there
The site lies beyond the villages of Aşağı Damlar and Yukarı Damlar, also called Birinci Köy and İkinci Köy: from the entrance to Alibey (Cunda) the road turns towards Pateriça and passes both before reaching it. Local buses serve the route.
- Access
- At the entrance to Alibey — Cunda — turn towards Pateriça and keep on past Birinci Köy, Aşağı Damlar, and İkinci Köy, Yukarı Damlar. City transport reaches it.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Balıkesir as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 4.9 °C in January to 25.7 °C in July; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in January (87 mm) and lightest in August (5 mm). Long-term means for 1999-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
